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THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS 


The  Story  of  the  Churches 


The  Congregationalists 


By 
LEONARD  WOOLSEY  BACON 

Pastor  at  Assonet,  Massachusetts  ;    and  Author  of  *^  A 
History  of  American  Christianity  " 


NEW  YORK:    THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 
33-37  East  Seventeenth  St.,  Union  Sq.  North 


Copyright,  1904, 

By 

The  Baker  &  Taylor  Co. 

Published,  March,  igo4 


Publishers'   Note 

The  aim  of  this  series  is  to  furnish  a  uniform 
set  of  church  histories,  brief  but  complete, 
and  designed  to  instruct  the  average  church 
member  in  the  origin,  development,  and  his- 
tory of  the  various  denominations.  Many 
church  histories  have  been  issued  for  all  de- 
nominations, but  they  have  usually  been 
volumes  of  such  size  as  to  discourage  any 
but  students  of  church  history.  Each  vol- 
ume of  this  series,  all  of  which  will  be 
written  by  leading  historians  of  the  various 
denominations,  will  not  only  interest  the 
members  of  the  denomination  about  which 
it  is  written,  but  will  prove  interesting  to 
members  of  other  denominations  as  well 
who  wish  to  learn  something  of  their  fellow 
workers.  The  volumes  will  be  bound  uni- 
formly, and  when  the  series  is  complete  will 
make  a  most  valuable  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian church. 


374287 


Contents 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    Definition  and  Plan 9 

II.     Puritan  Ideals 13 

III.  Pilgrim  and  Puritan 23 

IV.  The  Puritan  Exodus 44 

V.    Controversy  and  Council 56 

VI.    Half-Way  Covenant 76 

VII.  Keformation  and  Innovation  ...    83 

VIII.    A  Democratic  Reaction 97 

IX.    A  Retrospect 102 

X.    Great  Awakening Ill 

XI.    Growth  of  Doctrine 133 

XII.    Age  of  Home  Missions 140 

XIII.  Disruption 155 

XIV.  Unitarianism 170 

XV.    After  the  Disruption 182 

XVI.    Public  Reforms 201 

XVII.  Congregationalism  National  .   .    .  223 

XVIII.     Recent  Questions 238 

XIX.    The  Unitarians 248 

XX.     A  Wider  Review 255 

Bibliography 270 

Index •    •    •   ,   .    .  273 


The  Congregationalists 


CHAPTER  I 

DEFINITION   AND   PLAN 

Congregationalism  is  that  principle  of 
church  polity  according  to  which  the  unit 
of  sovereignty  in  church  government  is  the 
individual  congregation  of  Christian  disci- 
ples meeting  habitually  for  worship  and 
fellowship.  It  is  distinguished  from  Pres- 
byterianism,  according  to  which  the  unit  of 
sovereignty  is  the  neighbor  congregations 
of  a  certain  region,  represented  in  a  dele- 
gated clerico-laical  body  which  in  turn  is 
subject  to  constitutional  obligations  to 
councils  of  wider  representation  and  higher 
authority;  it  is  distinguished  from  National- 
ism, according  to  which  the  people  of  each 
9 


lo  The  Congregational  ists 

Christian  country  are  reckoned  as  the  church 
of  that  country,  subject  to  a  national  hier- 
archy whether  related  or  unrelated  to  the 
civil  government;  and  it  is  distinguished 
from  Catholicism,  which  holds  that  the  en- 
tire communion  of  saints  in  all  the  world 
constitutes  a  single  corporation  rightfully 
subject  to  an  individual  head. 

The  history  of  Congregationalism  may  be 
taken  as  recording  the  prevalence  of  this 
principle  of  the  right  of  self-government  of 
the  individual  congregation,  as  it  has  been 
wrought  out  into  practical  application  in 
America,  and  propagating  itself  like  leaven, 
has  widely  and  deeply  affected  the  admin- 
istration of  other  polities  at  the  furthest  re- 
move from  itself;  or  as  it  has  been  exem- 
plified in  those  church  fellowships,  embrac- 
ing so  large  a  part  of  Protestant  America, 
by  which  it  has  been  distinctly  accepted; 
or  especially  as  it  is  illustrated  in  the  history 
of  the  sect  that  sometimes  puts  forth  the 
claim  to  exclusive  rights  in  the  title  Congre- 


Definition  and  Plan  1 1 

gationaiist,  serving  peremptory  warning  on 
persons  and  churches  outside  of  its  organi- 
zation who  may  use  the  title  as  descriptive 
of  their  polity,  as  for  infringement  of  its 
trade-mark. 

The  present  Story  of  The  Congregation- 
alists,  beginning  with  the  evolution  of  the 
Congregational  polity  on  the  soil  of  New 
England,  will  not  avoid  any  one  of  these 
three  lines  of  study.  It  will  incidentally  in- 
dicate the  wide  influence,  direct  and  indi- 
rect, which  their  characteristic  tenet  has 
had  throughout  the  country  on  ecclesiastical 
and  even  on  civil  polity.  It  will  show  the 
origin,  and  in  some  instances  the  wide  ex- 
tension and  multitudinous  increase,  of  the 
several  sects  that  are  congregational  in  or- 
ganization. And  it  will  trace  in  such  detail 
as  the  limits  of  space  permit,  the  progress 
and  changes  of  that  now  somewhat  highly 
organized  and  consolidated  sect  which 
claims  to  be  known  as  The  Congregation- 
alists.    It  will  include  in  its  view  the  growth 


12  The  Congregationalists 

of  like  organizations  in  other  countries,  and 
some  of  the  most  nobly  successful  of  mod- 
ern Christian  missions. 


CHAPTER  II 


PURITAN   IDEALS 


It  would  be  most  misleading  to  the  stu- 
dent of  this  part  of  church  history,  to  as- 
sume that  the  great  and  splendid  body  of 
English  clergy,  gentry  and  yeomanry  who, 
to  the  number  of  twenty  thousand,  arrived 
in  New  England  in  the  twelve  years  from 
1628  to  1640,  came  as  Congregationalists, 
to  put  into  operation  a  preconceived  system 
of  church  polity.  They  were  rather,  as 
their  impassioned  declarations  testify,  de- 
voted and  affectionate  members  of  the  na- 
tional Church  of  England — so  devoted  and 
loyal  that  they  had  been  earnestly  intent, 
long  before  their  departure  from  England, 
on  seeking  its  highest  interests  in  a  greater 
purity  of  discipline  and  worship,  in  such 
wise  as  to  have  exposed  themselves  to  the 
13 


14  The  Congregationalists 

peril  of  estate,  liberty  and  life.  Thirty 
years  before  the  great  migration,  at  the  ac- 
cession of  James  I,  the  aims  of  the  Puritan 
party  at  that  time  were  defined  in  detail  in 
the  famous  "Millenary  Petition"  presented 
to  the  new  king  with  the  signatures  of 
nearly  a  thousand  of  the  established  clergy. 
It  is  notable  that  they  included  no  objection 
to  the  doctrinal  formularies  of  the  National 
Church,  nor  to  its  episcopal  constitution. 
The  petition  called  for  a  relaxation  of  the 
rigor  of  sundry  ritual  requirements,  but  its 
gravest  demands  were  for  such  an  adminis- 
tration of  discipline  as  should  relieve  the 
Church  which  they  served  and  loved  of  the 
shame  of  including  in  its  membership,  con- 
trary to  the  express  teaching  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  flagrantly  and  notoriously 
wicked,  and  in  its  clergy,  not  only  the  ig- 
norant, incompetent  and  non-resident,  but 
the  openly  immoral.  Doubtless  in  the 
three  decades  of  controversy  that  had  fol- 
lowed, the  demands  of  the  Puritan   party 


Puritan  Ideals  15 

had  grown  in  extent  and  in  definiteness,  as 
on  the  other  side  new  abuses  and  tyrannies 
had  exasperated  the  debate.  But  still  the 
main  contention  of  the  reforming  party, 
that  which  gave  them  their  party  name, 
continued  to  be  the  demand  that  the  Na- 
tional Church  should  no  longer  be  an  indis- 
criminate mingling,  both  in  clergy  and  in 
people,  of  the  worthy  and  the  vile,  but 
should  be  purified.  So  far  as  the  methods 
by  which  this  was  to  be  accomplished  had 
become  defined  in  the  minds  of  the  leaders, 
those  methods  which  some  of  them  had 
seen  in  successful  use  among  the  Reformed 
churches  of  the  continent  and  in  Scotland, 
and  which  had  been  commended  to  multi- 
tudes of  eager  students  in  the  university  of 
Cambridge  in  the  lectures  of  famous  Thomas 
Cartwright,  and  which  are  comprehended 
under  the  general  term  of  Presbyterianism, 
were  undoubtedly  most  in  favor;  though  it 
was  impossible  that  Richard  Hooker's  great 
treatise  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  containing, 


i6  The  Congregationalists 

with  much  that  was  antagonistic,  so  much 
that  was  highly  congenial  to  their  own 
ideas,  should  not  have  won  the  admiring 
attention  and  affected  the  opinions  of  these 
thoughtful  and  studious  men. 

As  between  the  two  possible  processes 
of  purifying  the  Church,  the  Puritans  had 
not  the  slightest  hesitation.  Some  earnest 
spirits,  impatient  with  the  slow  progress 
of  reform,  had  taken  as  their  motto,  "  Ref- 
ormation without  Tarrying  for  Any,"  and 
summoned  all  faithful  Christians  to  quit  the 
National  Church  as  coming  out  of  Babylon, 
and  to  associate  themselves  in  separated 
congregations.  But  to  the  Puritan  party  in 
general,  this  act  of  rending  themselves 
from  fellowship  with  holy  ministers  and 
faithful  disciples  in  the  parishes  of  the 
establishment  was  not  only  condemned  as 
weakening  the  party  of  reform  by  desert- 
ing from  the  fighting  line,  but  was  rejected 
with  sincere  horror  as  the  sin  of  schism. 
Some  of  the   experiments   that  had   been 


Puritan  Ideals  17 

made,  in  Separatist  congregations  of  exiles 
in  the  Low  Countries,  had  not  been 
attended  with  such  success  as  to  win  the 
respect  of  critical  observers.  The  Puritan 
party  in  the  Church  of  England  became 
the  more  convinced  that  the  true  method  of 
reform  was  not  that  of  the  "  come-outers  " 
who  would  leave  the  national  church  to 
sink  the  deeper  into  the  corruption  in 
which  it  was  involved,  but  that  of  staying 
within,  shunning  compliance  with  wrong, 
and  striving  to  exclude  unfit  members  and 
ministers  by  the  ways  of  discipline  pointed 
out  in  the  Scriptures;  it  was  not  by  culling 
out  the  holy,  but  by  weeding  out  the 
reprobate. 

The  first  adventure  towards  the  Puritan 
colonization  of  New  England  illustrates  the 
National  Church  system  in  its  most  amiable 
aspect.  The  Rev.  John  White,  for  more 
than  twenty  years  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
Dorchester,  by  his  devoted  care  for  his 
parishioners  and  his  zeal  for  the  interests  of 


i8  The  Congregationalists 

religion,  had  won  from  the  people  the  title 
of  "the  patriarch  of  Dorchester."  His 
solicitude  for  the  young  men  of  his  flock 
did  not  cease  when  they  were  absent,  as 
often  happened,  on  fishing  voyages  to  the 
New  England  coast.  "He  conceived  the 
plan  of  a  settlement  at  some  convenient 
point,  where  sailors  and  fishermen,  going 
ashore,  might  find  more  comfortable 
shelter  and  better  supplies  than  the  mere 
wilderness  could  give  them,  and  might 
have  the  benefit  of  religious  ministrations." 
A  company  of  "The  Dorchester  Adven- 
turers" was  organized  with  a  capital  of 
;^3,cxx);  and  some  beginnings  of  a  settle- 
ment were  made  on  Cape  Ann;  but  after 
two  seasons  of  experiment  the  Dorchester 
Adventurers  became  discouraged  in  their 
hope  of  dividends  and  retired  from  the 
enterprise.  But  the  seed  was  quickened 
when  it  died,  and  was  "raised  in  glory." 

For  the  thought  of  John  White,  through 
all  discouragements,  deepened  and  widened 


Puritan  Ideals  19 

in  his  mind  and  in  the  minds  of  the  Puritan 
leaders  with  whom  he  was  in  correspond- 
ence in  various  parts  of  England.  The 
current  of  public  events  had  been  for  years 
setting  their  plans,  without  their  knowing 
it,  towards  the  west.  The  ill-starred  reign 
of  Charles  I,  under  which  Church  affairs 
were  dominated  by  the  fierce  fanaticism  of 
Laud,  was  more  and  more  clouding  and 
even  quenching  the  hopes  alike  of  civil 
liberty  and  of  church  reformation.  The 
starting  of  a  poor  little  colony  of  Separa- 
tists, at  Plymouth,  which  was  just  emerg- 
ing from  its  earliest  perils  and  hardships; 
and  now  the  attempt  at  Cape  Ann,  not  yet 
quite  extinct,  stirred  the  minds,  not  of  a 
few  persecuted  exiles,  but  of  sundry 
''knights  and  gentlemen  about  Dorches- 
ter," together  with  "  several  other  religious 
persons  of  like  quality  in  and  about  Lon- 
don," to  the  great  design  of  a  Puritan 
colony  across  the  sea,  in  which  the  ideal  of 
a    Christian    church    in  a  Christian  state. 


20  The  Congregationalists 

which  they  had  labored,  thus  far  in  vain, 
to  realize  in  their  native  land,  might  be 
attempted  without  hindrance.  With  many 
an  example  of  ruinous  failure  in  coloniza- 
tion to  deter  them,  the  noble  enterprise 
was  resolved  upon,  if  only  **fit  men  might 
be  procured  to  go  over."  The  condition 
was  fulfilled  when,  June,  1628,  Capt.  John 
Endicott,  in  The  Abigail,  with  about  forty 
colonists,  sailed  from  Weymouth,  the  port 
of  Dorchester,  for  the  harbor  of  Naumkeag, 
afterwards  Salem.  About  a  year  after- 
wards the  young  colony  was  reinforced  by 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons 
in  three  vessels  abundantly  provisioned. 
With  this  company  came  three  ministers 
carefully  selected  by  the  governing  com- 
pany for  their  fitness  for  so  weighty  and 
exceptional  a  charge.  A  historian  (not 
contemporary)  relates  of  the  foremost  of 
these  that  "  when  they  came  to  the  Land's 
End,  Mr.  Higginson,  calling  up  his  children 
and  other  passengers  unto  the  stern  of  the 


Puritan  Ideals  21 

ship  to  take  their  last  sight  of  England, 
said,  '  We  will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists 
were  wont  to  say  at  their  leaving  of  Eng- 
land, Farewell,  Babylon!  farewell,  Rome! 
but  we  will  say,  Farewell,  dear  England, 
farewell,  the  church  of  God  in  England  and 
all  the  Christian  friends  there.  We  do  not 
go  to  New  England  as  Separatists  from  the 
Church  of  England,  though  we  cannot  but 
separate  from  the  corruptions  in  it;  but  we 
go  to  practice  the  positive  part  of  church 
reformation,  and  propagate  the  Gospel  in 
America.'"  Whether  or  not  the  incident 
occurred  as  narrated,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
it  expresses  the  sincere  sentiment  of  the 
Puritan  colonists,  both  towards  the 
National  Church  which  they  loved,  and 
towards  the  Separatists  whose  course  they 
so  severely  reprobated.  They  were  intent 
on  planting  in  the  wilderness  a  state  and  a 
state-church  such  as,  in  their  view,  England 
and  the  Church  of  England  ought  to  have 
been.     Especially    (as    their    after    course 


22  The  Congregationalists 

proves)  they  meant  to  reproduce  whatever 
was  good  in  that  parish  system  under 
which  each  dwelling  in  the  kingdom  was 
assigned  to  the  charge  of  some  minister, 
and  each  minister  and  parish  church  had  a 
definite  field  of  activity  and  responsibility. 

With  conceptions  like  these,  and  with  a 
noble  self-consecration  to  Christian  duty, 
the  company  of  about  two  hundred  colo- 
nists with  Endicott  for  governor  and  the 
three  ministers  sent  out  by  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  Company,  set  themselves  **to 
practice  the  positive  part  of  church  refor- 
mation "  on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness. 
But  meanwhile  an  incident  befell  which 
was  destined  to  have  an  important  bearing 
on  the  course  of  church  history  in  America. 


CHAPTER  III 

PILGRIM   AND  PURITAN 

When  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company 
planted  its  well  provided  colony  at  Salem, 
it  was  not  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  fifty 
miles  to  the  south  the  feeble  community  of 
the  Plymouth  Separatists  was  struggling 
into  life.  But  the  company's  choice  of  a 
location  was  made  with  no  purpose  of  fel- 
lowship with  its  neighbors.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  Pilgrim  settlement  had,  from  its 
beginning,  been  the  object  of  distinctly  un- 
friendly feeling  and  deed  on  the  part  of  the 
religious  party  that  was  dominant  in  the 
company.  Some  of  the  sorest  of  the  troub- 
les that  beset  that  forlorn  hope  of  a  colony 
in  their  preparations  for  the  voyage,  and 
pursued  them  into  their  refuge  in  the  wil- 
derness, proceeded  from  that  Puritan  party 
23 


24  The  Congregationalists 

to  which  they  were  bound  by  identity  of 
religious  opinion  and  by  feehngs  of  rever- 
ence towards  its  great  preachers  and  the- 
ologians. The  Puritans  abhorred  the  schism 
by  which  the  Separatists  had  torn  them- 
selves loose  from  the  general  fellowship  of 
English  Christians,  and  had  been  shocked 
at  the  acrimonious  denunciations  flung  back 
upon  the  National  Church  by  some  who  had 
left  it.  The  record  of  the  seceders  had  not 
been  altogether  such  as  to  command  re- 
spect. Among  them  had  been  martyrs  and 
confessors  of  whom  the  world  was  not 
worthy.  But  their  earliest  leader,  Robert 
Browne,  a  man  of  prophetic  mind,  in 
whose  writings  are  enunciated  those  prin- 
ciples of  polity  both  in  church  and  state 
which  after  three  centuries  have  come  to 
general  acceptance  in  America,  had  not  in 
him  the  stuff  for  a  martyr,  and  after  a 
stormy  day  his  sun  set  under  a  cloud.  Of 
the  churches  of  The  Separation,  existing  in 
exile  under  the  protection  of  the  Dutch  Re- 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  25 

public,  some  had  brought  scandal  on  their 
cause,  by  meddlesome  attempts  at  disci- 
pline, by  disputes  over  questions  which  to 
us  seem  frivolous,  and  by  schism  within 
schism. 

There  was  one  of  these  congregations  to 
which  no  part  of  this  reproach  could  apply. 
The  little  group  of  neighbors  who  were 
wont  to  assemble,  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  at  a  decaying  manor-house  of  the 
Archbishops  of  York,  of  which  William 
Brewster  was  tenant,  in  the  little  village  of 
Scrooby,  on  the  confines  of  Nottingham- 
shire, were  men  and  women  whose  con- 
stancy under  persecution,  whose  mutual 
love  and  patience,  gentleness  and  moder- 
ation towards  opponents,  and  noble  perse- 
verance against  perils  and  distresses  in  the 
prosecution  of  a  great  and  beneficent  enter- 
prise, would  have  adorned  the  martyrology 
of  any  age  of  the  Christian  Church.  These 
heroic  qualities  were  the  fair  reflection  of 
the  preeminent  wisdom  and  holiness  of  the 


26  The  Congregationalists 

pastor,  John  Robinson.  We  recognize  in 
him,  and  to  no  small  degree  in  the  whole 
Church  which  he  served  as  pastor,  the  com- 
bination, so  rare  in  human  nature,  of  un- 
compromising devotion  to  ideal  truth  and 
duty,  with  the  patience  of  hope,  and  a 
large  and  loving  sympathy  with  good  men 
who  differed  from  him.  The  little  com- 
pany of  fellow-worshippers  with  him  who 
succeeded  in  escaping  from  the  fierce  per- 
secution which  was  resolved  that  it  would 
neither  tolerate  them  within  the  realm  of 
England  nor  suffer  them  to  leave  it,  pur- 
posely avoided  implicating  themselves  in 
the  divisions  into  which  some  other  com- 
munities of  exiled  Separatists  had  fallen, 
and  shunning  Amsterdam,  found  a  tempo- 
rary home  in  the  quiet  university  town  of 
Leyden.  Constrained  by  noble  motives, 
and  filled  with  high  hopes  of  what  they 
might  accomplish  for  the  advancement  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  but  fully  aware  of 
the  perils  and  distresses  that  were  before 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  27 

tnem  in  an  enterprise  the  like  of  which  had 
not  yet  been  attempted  by  Englishmen 
without  disaster,  the  feeble  and  ill  provided 
company  effected  its  lodgment  on  the  rock 
of  Plymouth  on  the  shortest  and  darkest 
day  of  the  winter  of  1620. 

Few  chapters  of  human  history  have 
been  oftener  and  more  worthily  told  than 
the  story  of  the  Pilgrim  colony;  and  few 
have  better  deserved  the  telling.  But  in  its 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  this  book  it  is  of 
less  importance  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed. The  Pilgrims,  in  their  solitary 
hamlet  of  Plymouth,  were  far  from  having 
instituted  what  would  be  recognized  as  a 
Congregational  church  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  word.  Their  ideal  of  church  gov- 
ernment rejected  the  radical  democratic 
notions  of  Robert  Browne,  and  held  to  a 
government  by  the  eldership,  sanctioned  by 
the  tacit  or  expressed  consent  of  the  mem- 
bers. To  them  the  question  of  the  mutual 
relation  of  churches  was,  in  their  utter  iso- 


28  The  Congregationalists 

lation,  not  a  practical  question.  The 
church  which  gathered  for  worship  at  tuck 
of  drum  on  the  bleak  hilltop  of  Plymouth 
was  what  would  be  called,  in  our  modern 
nomenclature,  an  Independent  Presbyterian 
church. 

But  there  was  one  principle  to  which  the 
church  of  Plymouth  stood  committed  by  all 
its  antecedents,  to  wit,  that  a  Christian 
church  is  necessarily  a  church  of  Christians, 
withdrawn  from  fellowship  with  the 
openly  unbelieving  and  ungodly  and  united 
to  each  other  by  a  covenant,  express  or 
implied,  of  common  duty  and  mutual  faith- 
fulness. Yet  even  this  principle,  by  which 
they  had  justified  their  withdrawal  from 
the  "mixed  muhitude"  of  the  English  par- 
ish churches  to  the  conventicle  at  Scrooby 
manor-house,  was  held  by  the  Plymouth 
exiles  in  no  such  bitter  and  exasperated 
spirit  as  had  been  manifested  by  some  of 
the  Separatists,  but  in  a  spirit  of  patience, 
respect  and  loving  fellowship,  even  under 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  29 

extreme  provocation,  towards  English  fel- 
low-Christians who  held  both  their  princi- 
ple and  their  action  in  the  severest  reproba- 
tion. The  latest  words  of  saintly  John 
Robinson,  ''found  in  his  study  after  his 
decease,"  were  counsels  of  peace  towards 
the  unseparated  brethren  in  the  national 
church  of  England.  In  his  touching  fare- 
well to  his  departing  flock,  he  spoke  in  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  of  a  time  when  unsepa- 
rated Puritan  ministers  of  the  Church  of 
England  should  "come  to  the  practice  of 
the  ordinances  out  of  the  kingdom  "  and 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
and  the  bishops'  courts,  and  predicted  that 
Vv^hen  this  should  be,  ''there  will  be  no 
difference  between  them  and  you." 

The  exiles  departed  "sorrowing  that  they 
should  see  his  face  no  more."  That  Robin- 
son was  never  again  to  meet  the  church  that 
he  so  loved  was  due  in  part  to  the  stern 
disapproval  of  Separatism  which  was  cher- 
ished by  the  Puritan  party  in  England,  and 


30  The  Congregationalists 

their  jealous  unwillingness  to  permit  the  re- 
inforcement of  the  Separatist  colony  by  so 
important  an  accession.  This  was  not  the 
only  sore  distress  that  had  been  suffered  by 
the  Pilgrims  from  the  sharp  antagonism  of 
their  Puritan  brethren  in  the  national  church. 
The  joy  that  was  felt  in  the  lonely  hamlet 
of  Plymouth  at  the  news  that  they  were  to 
have  Christian  neighbors  a  day's  journey  to 
the  northward  may  well  have  been  mingled 
with  serious  misgivings. 

But  the  relations  between  the  two  settle- 
ments were  from  the  beginning  most  af- 
fectionate and  fraternal.  Upon  landing  at 
Salem,  the  three  ship-loads  of  reinforce- 
ments for  Endicott's  company  were  found 
to  be  infected  with  the  scurvy,  a  com- 
mon incident  of  long  voyages  in  that  and 
even  in  later  centuries.  Governor  Endicott 
sent  to  Plymouth  for  medical  aid,  and  the 
visit  of  the  "beloved  physician  "  and  deacon 
of  the  Pilgrim  church,  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller,  put 
an  end  to  all  fears,  on  either  side,  of  estrange- 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  31 

ment  between  the  neighbor  settlements. 
Whatever  prejudgments  the  Salem  people 
had  formed  against  the  Separatists  melted 
away  under  the  kindly  ministrations  of 
Deacon  Fuller,  and  under  his  statement  of 
the  principles  and  usages  of  the  Plymouth 
church.  The  letter  of  thanks  from  Endi- 
cott  to  the  governor  of  Plymouth  is  a 
classic  in  American  church  history. 

To  the  Worshipful  and  my  right  worthy 
Friend,  William  Bradford,  Esq.,  Gover- 
nor of  New  Plymouth,  these: 

Right  Worthy  Sir  : 

It  is  a  thing  not  usual  that  servants  to 
one  master  and  of  the  same  household 
should  be  strangers;  I  assure  you  I  desire 
it  not — nay,  to  speak  more  plainly,  1  cannot 
be  so  to  you.  God's  people  are  marked 
with  one  and  the  same  mark  and  sealed 
with  one  and  the  same  seal,  and  have,  for 
the  main,  one  and  the  same  heart  guided 
by  one  and  the  same  Spirit  of  truth;  and 
where  this  is  there  can  be  no  discord — nay, 
there  must  needs  be  sweet  harmony.  The 
same  request  with  you  I  make  unto  the 
Lord,  that  we  may,  as  Christian  brethren, 
be    united  by   a   heavenly   and   unfeigned 


32  The  Congregationalists 

love,  bending  all  our  hearts  and  forces  in 
furthering  a  work  beyond  our  strength, 
with  reverence  and  fear  fastening  our  eyes 
always  on  him  that  only  is  able  to  direct 
and  prosper  all  our  ways. 

I  acknowledge  myself  much  bound  to 
you  for  your  kind  love  and  care  in  sending 
Mr.  Fuller  among  us;  and  I  rejoice  much 
that  I  am  by  him  satisfied  touching  your 
judgments  of  the  outward  form  of  God's 
worship.  It  is,  as  far  as  1  can  yet  gather, 
no  other  than  is  warranted  by  the  evidence 
of  truth,  and  the  same  which  1  have  pro- 
fessed and  maintained  ever  since  the  Lord 
in  mercy  revealed  himself  to  me;  being 
very  far  different  from  the  common  report 
that  hath  been  spread  of  you  touching  that 
particular.  But  God's  children  must  not 
look  for  less  here  below,  and  it  is  the  great 
mercy  of  God  that  he  strengthens  them  to 
go  through  with  it. 

I  shall  not  need  at  this  time  to  be  tedious 
unto  you;  for,  God  willing,  I  purpose  to  see 
your  face  shortly.  In  the  meantime,  I 
humbly  take  my  leave  of  you,  committing 
you  to  the  Lord's  blessed  protection,  and 
rest." 

Your  assured  loving  friend  and  servant, 
John  Endicott. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace,  in  the  measures 
taken  towards  the  ordering  of  church  insti- 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  33 

tutions  at  Salem,  the  precautions  of  prudent 
men  to  avoid  the  ecclesiastical  abuses 
against  which  they  had  been  protesting  in 
their  native  land.  One  of  the  most  of- 
fensive of  these  was  the  right  of  patronage 
by  which  men  were  thrust  into  the  min- 
istry and  imposed  as  pastors  on  unwilling 
congregations,  by  the  authority  of  some 
secular  person  or  corporation.  It  was  easy 
to  see  that  the  conscientious  and  religious 
care  with  which  the  Massachusetts  Com- 
pany, under  whose  charter  and  encourage- 
ment the  colonists  were  settled,  had  se- 
cured three  clergymen  of  the  highest  quali- 
fications for  the  service  of  the  colony, 
might,  if  simply  acquiesced  in,  grow  into  a 
precedent  for  reproducing  in  the  new  coun- 
try the  abhorrent  simony  and  spiritual 
tyranny  of  the  old.  It  was  determined  that 
an  appointment  by  the  company  that  stood 
in  the  place  of  secular  governor  to  the  col- 
ony conferred  no  spiritual  authority  over 
the  community  of  Christian  worshippers  in 


34  The  Congregationalists 

Salem,  and  that  such  authority  could  come 
only  through  the  free  choice  of  the  people 
themselves.  Accordingly  a  day  of  fasting 
was  set  apart  by  the  governor,  and  in  the 
assembly  of  the  people  the  two  Church-of- 
England  clergymen  who  were  regarded  as 
candidates  for  the  eldership  in  the  Salem 
Church  gave  their  views  as  to  what  consti- 
tutes a  call  to  the  ministry.  ''They  ac- 
knowledged there  was  a  twofold  calling: 
the  one  an  inward  calling,  when  the  Lord 
moved  the  heart  of  a  man  to  take  that  call- 
ing upon  him  and  fitted  him  with  gifts  for 
the  same;  the  second  was  from  the  people, 
when  a  company  of  believers  are  joined  to- 
gether in  covenant  to  walk  together  in  all 
the  ways  of  God."  By  written  ballots  the 
two  ministers,  Skelton  and  Higginson, 
were  chosen  respectively  to  be  pastor  and 
teacher  of  the  church.  Then  followed  the 
solemn  induction  into  office.  "  They  ac- 
cepting the  choice,  Mr.  Higginson  and  three 
or  four  more  of  the  gravest  members  of 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  35 

the  church  laid  their  hands  on  Mr.  Skelton, 
using  prayers  therewith.  This  being  done, 
then  there  was  imposition  of  hands  on  Mr. 
Higginson."  The  church  was  thus  pro- 
vided with  its  teaching  eldership,  and  it 
was  proposed  to  go  forward  and  complete 
the  organization  by  the  election  of  other 
elders  and  of  deacons.  But  for  reasons 
that  do  not  fully  appear,  it  was  deemed 
best  to  stay  the  proceedings  at  this  point. 
They  were  not  resumed  until  after  other 
action  of  quite  a  different  sort,  the  motive 
and  grave  significance  of  which  to  the  par- 
ticipants in  it  is  easily  discernible. 

The  protest  of  the  Puritan  party  in  the 
church  of  England  had  been  not  only 
against  an  unfit  ministry  forced  upon  the 
churches  by  secular  power  or  patronage, 
but  also,  with  not  less  emphasis,  against 
the  indiscriminate  mingling,  in  its  member- 
ship, of  faithful  believers  in  Christ,  with 
the  notoriously  vile  and  wicked  and  even 
the    publicly  criminal.     What  precautions 


36  The  Congregational!  sts 

were  they  taking  against  the  recrudescence 
in  the  new  colony  of  this  same  abuse 
which  had  been  found  intolerable  in 
England?  And  how  "discern  between 
the  righteous  and  the  wicked  "  ?  Accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  the  Puritan 
Nationalists,  this  should  be  accomplished 
by  the  faithful  exercise  of  church  discipline, 
excluding  from  the  fellowship  of  the 
church  the  incorrigibly  unworthy.  The 
other  method,  of  culling  out  the  well 
approved  disciples  from  the  general  multi- 
tude and  constituting  them  into  a  church 
by  themselves — what  was  this  but  the  very 
practice  of  the  Separatists,  in  their  zeal  for 
"reformation  without  tarrying  for  any," 
against  which  the  Puritans  had  protested 
as  the  sin  of  schism  ?  And  yet  what  else 
was  to  be  done  ?  The  early  records  give 
indications  enough  that  there  was  a  dis- 
tinctly and  recognizably  vicious  element 
mingled  with  even  the  choicest  companies 
of  colonists.     Was  it  now  the  duty  of  the 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  37 

Salem  people,  in  ordering  the  beginnings 
of  their  church  estate,  to  include  in  the 
brotherhood  the  dubious  and  the  not  at  all 
dubious  characters  whom  it  would  be  their 
next  duty  to  exclude  by  the  painful  stages 
of  discipline?  These  questions  may  well 
have  occupied  the  thoughts  of  the  imper- 
fectly organized  church,  during  the  stay  of 
proceedings  after  the  ordination  of  the 
two  teaching  elders.  Partly,  no  doubt, 
through  the  influence  of  the  Plymouth 
church,  but  quite  as  much  under  the 
constraint  of  the  new  situation,  the  Chris- 
tian people  of  Salem  entered  upon  a  pro- 
cedure that  became  a  type  for  church 
organization  throughout  New  England, 
and  has  widely  affected  the  course  of 
church  history  in  the  United  States,  to  this 
day. 

The  reason  assigned  for  adjourning  the 
further  organization  of  the  church  had  been 
the  expected  arrival  of  another  company 
from  England.     But  without  awaiting  this 


38  The  Congregationalists 

arrival,  another  day  of  fasting  was  ap- 
pointed for  the  election  of  elders  and 
deacons.  In  preparation  for  this,  action 
was  taken  that  was  logically  antecedent  to 
the  election  of  officers,  to  wit,  the  con- 
stituting of  the  church.  Thirty  persons 
were  named  to  be  the  first  members  of  the 
church.  A  form  of  mutual  covenant  was 
drawn  by  the  pen  of  Teacher  Higginson, 
and  thirty  copies  of  it  were  written  out; 
and  on  the  appointed  day  the  thirty  con- 
stituent members  solemnly  declared:  "We 
covenant  with  the  Lord  and  one  with 
another,  and  do  bind  ourselves,  in  the 
presence  of  God,  to  walk  together  in  all 
his  ways,  according  as  he  is  pleased  to 
reveal  himself  unto  us  in  his  blessed  word 
of  truth."  This  done,  the  church,  formally 
constituted  by  covenant,  presented  anew  to 
the  pastor  and  teacher  already  less  formally 
chosen  and  inducted  into  office  the  invita- 
tion to  exercise  these  functions,  and  once 
more  the  divine  blessing  was  invoked  upon 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  39 

them  with  laying  on  of  hands,  consecrating 
them  anew  to  their  sacred  work. 

The  transaction  suggests  certain  reflec- 
tions : 

1.  The  Christians  of  Salem  did  accept, 
in  practice  if  not  in  theory,  the  Pilgrim 
view  that  the  church  was  to  consist,  not  of 
the  baptized  persons  in  a  community,  from 
whom  those  proved  unworthy  should  be 
excluded  by  process  of  discipline;  but  of 
persons  of  demonstrated  fitness  "called 
out"  from  the  community,  with  **  power 
to  add  to  their  number"  persons  of  like 
fitness. 

2.  They  probably  believed  that  in  these 
acts  they  were  originating  a  church,  just  as 
the  Pilgrims  believed  that  they  were  creat- 
ing rights  of  government  by  their  "social 
compact  "  on  the  Mayflower.  It  is  easy  for 
us,  with  our  advantage  of  perspective,  to 
see  that  they  were  only  organizing  a  church 
already  existent.  If  there  had  been  no 
church  in  Salem,  by  what  authority  were 


40  The  Congregationalists 

the  thirty  men  detailed  to  do  the  organiz- 
ing ? 

3.  The  action  taken  implies  a  distinct 
recognition  of  independence  of  the  national 
church  of  England — that  the  church  of 
England  was  not  the  church  of  New 
England,  any  more  than  it  was  the  church 
of  Scotland.  By  virtue  of  removal  across 
the  ocean,  the  colonists,  while  still  owning 
allegiance  to  the  British  crown,  and 
sincerely  professing  their  affection  for  the 
national  church,  had  ceased  to  belong  to 
"the  ecclesiastical  realm." 

4.  The  action  at  Salem  was,  and  was 
meant  to  be,  a  distinct  repudiation  of  the 
sacerdotal  conception  of  the  church  and 
ministry.  Like  the  rest  of  the  New  Eng- 
land clergy  of  the  first  generation,  the  two 
ministers  of  the  Salem  church  had  been 
episcopally  ordained  in  England;  but  the 
fact  was  not  regarded  as  having  any  validity 
in  Salem.  So  far  were  the  founders  of  the 
colony  from   any  superstitious  regard  for 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  41 

*'the  indelibility  of  orders,"  that  they  not 
only  renewed  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
"using  prayers  therewith,"  when  they 
blessed  the  newly  inducted  ministers  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord;  but  they  even 
thought  it  no  sacrilege  to  repeat  again  that 
solemn  act  of  benediction  on  the  same 
persons  only  a  few  days  later. 

5.  It  was  far  from  the  thoughts  of  the 
Salem  colonists  to  found  a  sect.  However 
mistaken  they  might  be  as  to  the  criteria  of 
Christian  character,  they  had  no  intention 
of  excluding  from  their  fellowship  any  true 
disciple  of  Jesus  Christ.  As  little  did  they 
intend  to  permit  any,  in  the  spirit  of  Sepa- 
ratism, to  cut  themselves  off  from  the  com- 
mon fellowship  and  organize  themselves 
into  a  schismatic  conventicle.  They  were 
advised  that  the  Separatist  minister,  Ralph 
Smith,  who  had  managed  to  get  passage 
on  one  of  their  ships,  should  not  be  suffered 
to  remain  in  the  colony,  "  unless  he  will  be 
conformable  to  our  government " ;  and,  al- 


42  The  Congregational!' sts 

though  not  unkindly  treated,  Smith  found 
more  congenial  surroundings  at  Plymouth. 
In  like  manner,  when  two  of  the  leading 
colonists,  the  brothers  Brown,  drawing 
others  with  them,  set  up  a  separate  meeting 
with  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  they 
were  called  to  account  for  their  schismatic 
course,  and  promptly  shipped  back  to  Eng- 
land by  fiery  Governor  Endicott,  as  being 
of  such  a  factious  spirit  that  **  New  England 
was  no  place  for  such  as  they." 

A  picturesque  incident  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Salem  church  demands  our 
notice.  Before  the  ordination  solemnities 
were  ended,  an  eagerly  awaited  but  belated 
shallop  landed  on  the  beach  at  Salem  "the 
messengers  of  the  church  at  Plymouth." 
They  came  into  the  assembly,  Governor 
Bradford  at  their  head,  and  in  the  name  of 
the  Pilgrim  church  declared  their  **  appro- 
bation and  concurrence"  and  greeted  the 
new  church  with  **the  right  hand  of  fellow- 
ship."   Thus  was  emphasized  that  principle 


Pilgrim  and  Puritan  43 

of  mutual  communion  among  independent 
churches  which  was  to  become  one  of  the 
distinctions  of  American  Congregational- 
ism. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   PURITAN   EXODUS 

While  these  events  were  in  progress  at 
Salem,  there  was  preparing,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  sea,  that  notable  coup  d'  etat 
which  was  to  result,  in  a  few  months,  in 
the  creation  of  a  powerful  self-governed 
republic  on  the  shore  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay.  The  signs  of  hope  for  the  little  settle- 
ment just  planted,  the  darkening  prospects 
of  both  church  and  state  in  England,  alike 
tended  to  convince  many  of  the  Puritan 
leaders  that  the  success  of  both  their  polit- 
ical and  their  religious  aspirations  was  to  be 
looked  for  rather  in  the  New  England  than 
in  the  Old.  The  spirit  of  colonization  took 
eager  possession  of  ardent  and  prophetic 
minds  in  various  parts  of  England;  but 
there  were  especially  three  centres  at  which 
44 


The  Puritan  Exodus  45 

this  spirit  was  most  actively  manifest.  In 
"the  west  country"  John  White,  "the 
patriarch  of  Dorchester,"  had  never  let  go  the 
project  of  a  Christian  settlement  which  had 
seemed  to  fail  at  Cape  Ann  but  had  now 
come  to  new  life  in  Endicott's  young  colony 
at  Salem;  and  he  was  in  correspondence 
with  men  of  means  and  influence  like- 
minded  with  himself.  In  the  northeastern 
counties,  where  the  famous  pulpit  of  John 
Cotton  at  Boston  was  one  of  several  foci 
of  spiritual  light,  and  where  the  patient 
sufferings  of  the  "little  flock"  of  Scrooby 
had  been  working  like  leaven,  there  were 
consultations  in  which  persons  of  high 
rank  and  consideration  took  part.  But 
especially  London,  the  home  of  patriotic 
citizenship  and  Puritan  zeal,  was  a  centre 
of  activity  and  mutual  conference  in  which 
the  movements  of  different  groups  were  co- 
ordinated. Not  without  mature  though 
private  counsel,  and  cautious  advice  of 
lawyers,  was  the  bold  and  brilliant  stroke 


46  The  Congregationalists 

resolved  upon,  to  vest  the  official  authority 
of  the  Massachusetts  Company  in  men  who 
would  lead  the  colonists  in  person,  and 
take  the  royal  charter,  with  its  ample  grant 
of  power,  across  the  sea,  to  establish  the 
headquarters  of  authority  in  the  colony 
itself.  The  great  and  good  John  Winthrop 
was  made  governor,  and  with  him,  or  in 
surprisingly  few  months  after  him,  went 
forth  that  Puritan  migration  which  never 
before  nor  since,  in  the  historic  movements 
of  the  earth's  population,  has  been  equalled 
for  the  dignity  of  its  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. In  the  year  1630  no  fewer  than 
seventeen  ships,  carrying  about  one  thou- 
sand passengers,  sailed  from  English  ports 
for  Massachusetts  Bay.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  The  Puritan  Exodus.  "At  the 
end  of  ten  years  from  Winthrop's  arrival, 
about  twenty-one  thousand  Englishmen,  or 
four  thousand  families,  including  the  few 
hundreds  who  were  here  before  him,  had 
come  over  in  three  hundred  vessels,  at  a 


The  Puritan  Exodus  47 

cost    of    two    hundred    thousand    pounds 
sterling." 

The  precedent  set  by  the  colonists  of 
Salem,  in  the  organization  of  their  church 
was  followed  with  remarkable  exactness 
by  the  succeeding  settlements.  Conspicu- 
ous among  them  was  the  company  of 
which  Winthrop  himself  was  leader.  At 
its  first  settlement  in  Charlestown  (whence 
it  removed  presently  to  become  the  First 
Church  of  Boston)  the  four  foremost  men 
of  the  community,  Winthrop,  Johnson, 
Dudley  and  Wilson,  on  an  appointed  day 
of  prayer  and  fasting,  subscribed  their 
names  to  this  covenant: 

In  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
in  obedience  to  his  holy  will  and  divine  or- 
dinance, we  whose  names  are  hereunder 
written,  being  by  his  most  wise  and  good 
providence  brought  together  into  this  part 
of  America  in  the  Bay  of  Massachusetts, 
and  desirous  to  unite  ourselves  into  one 
congregation  or  church  under  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  our  Head,  in  such  sort  as  be- 
cometh  all  those  whom  he  hath  redeemed 


48  The  Congregationalists 

and  sanctified  to  himself,  do  hereby  sol- 
emnly and  religiously,  as  in  his  most  holy 
presence,  promise  and  bind  ourselves  to 
walk  in  all  our  ways  according  to  the  rule 
of  the  gospel,  and  in  all  sincere  conformity 
to  his  holy  ordinances,  and  in  mutual  love 
and  respect  each  to  other,  so  near  as  God 
shall  give  us  grace. 


Thus  having  "united  themselves  into  a 
church"  by  a  mutual  covenant  in  which 
they  "bound  themselves"  to  nothing  to 
which  they  were  not  already  bound  as  dis- 
ciples of  Christ,  they  were  in  a  position  to 
admit,  or  refuse  to  admit,  others  to  their 
fellowship.  That  30th  of  July,  1630,  was  a 
memorable  day  in  New  England  history, 
when,  with  solemn  prayer  and  fasting  in 
which  the  churches  already  constituted  in 
Plymouth  and  in  Salem  joined  with  their 
newly  arrived  brethren,  the  two  churches 
of  Charlestown  and  Watertown  were  or- 
ganized and  their  ministry  inducted  into 
office  with  laying  on  of  hands.  The  church 
of  Dorchester  had  this  distinction,  that  al- 


The  Puritan  Exodus  49 

ready,  as  the  company  was  about  to  sail 
from  Plymouth,  it  had  been  organized  at  a 
meeting  held  at  "the  New  Hospital"  of 
that  town,  when  a  sermon  was  preached  by 
"the  patriarch"  John  White. 

The  most  typical  of  these  acts  of  church 
organization  was  that  of  the  founders  of 
New  Haven.  Led  by  Davenport  and  Eaton, 
they  had  arrived  at  "their  desired  haven" 
in  the  early  spring  of  1638,  but  not  until 
fourteen  months  later,  after  much  prayer, 
study  and  discussion,  did  they  consider  the 
business  fully  mature  for  action.  Soon 
after  their  landing  they  had  made  a  provi- 
sional "plantation  covenant"  mutually 
pledging  themselves  to  be  governed  in  their 
future  action  relating  either  to  the  church  or 
to  the  civil  order,  "by  those  rules  which 
the  Scripture  holds  forth."  During  these 
toilsome  first  months  of  the  new  plantation, 
while  their  views  of  polity  in  church  and 
state  were  so  deliberately  canvassed,  they 
were  not  without  organization.     The  town 


5©  The  Congregationalists 

was  "cast  into  several  private  meetings 
wherein  they  that  dwelt  most  together  gave 
their  accounts  one  to  another  of  God's  gra- 
cious work  upon  them,  and  prayed  to- 
gether, and  conferred  to  mutual  edification, 
and  had  knowledge  one  of  another." 
When  at  last  they  were  assembled  "  in  Mr. 
Newman's  barn"  the  solemnities  of  the 
day  were  introduced  by  a  sermon  from 
Davenport  on  this  text,  "Wisdom  hath 
builded  her  house;  she  hath  hewn  out  her 
seven  pillars."  By  common  consent  it  was 
agreed  "that  twelve  men  be  chosen,  that 
their  fitness  for  the  foundation-work  may 
be  tried;"  and  "that  it  be  in  the  power  of 
these  twelve  to  choose  out  of  themselves 
seven  that  shall  be  most  approved  of  the 
major  part,  to  begin  the  church."  It  was 
the  14th  of  June,  1639,  when  the  "seven 
pillars "  were  hewn  out.  By  covenant 
among  themselves,  and  by  receiving  others 
into  the  same  compact,  it  was  held  that  a 
church   was    constituted    on    the    22d    of 


The  Puritan  Exodus  51 

August.  It  is  wonderful  that  in  these  and 
like  proceedings  it  did  not  grow  clear  to  the 
minds  of  the  founders  that  instead  of  creat- 
ing church  and  civil  state  by  their  **  social 
compact,"  they  were  simply  putting  into 
orderly  and  organic  form  the  church  and 
state  already  in  being.  With  one  accord 
they  accepted  so  much  of  the  Separatist 
polity  as  to  hold  that  the  church  existed  by 
virtue  of  a  mutual  agreement  (either  tacit 
or  expressed)  among  certain  individual  be- 
lievers that  they  would  be  a  church.  It  is 
easy  to  believe  that  the  example  and  argu- 
ment of  the  Plymouth  Separatists  had  less 
to  do  in  bringing  them  to  this  position, 
than  the  exigencies  of  the  situation.  To 
the  extreme  tenets  of  the  extreme  Separa- 
tists, renouncing  fellowship  with  faithful 
ministers  and  worshippers  in  the  Church  of 
England,  the  churches  of  New  England 
generally  gave  no  adhesion. 

In  the  year  1640  the  assembling  of  the 
Long  Parliament  secured  protection  to  the 


52  The  Congregationalists 

Puritans  in  England,  and  the  Puritan  Exodus 
to  America  ceased.  At  this  date  there  were 
forty  churches  in  New  England,  all  formed 
after  substantially  the  same  model,  beside 
three  in  Long  Island.  The  Exodus  had  in- 
cluded a  very  large  proportion  of  able  and 
learned  ministers,  so  that  it  was  possible  in 
many  churches  to  realize  the  ideal  of  the 
founders,  that  each  church  should  be  pro- 
vided with  its  presbytery  of  two  teaching 
elders  (pastor  and  teacher)  as  well  as  one  or 
more  ruling  elders.  These  officers,  with 
deacons  who  should  be  the  church  al- 
moners, were  chosen  by  free  election,  and 
the  teaching  elders  inducted  into  office  with 
the  laying  on  of  hands.  That  no  disrespect 
was  intended  to  the  ministry  that  they  had 
formerly  exercised  in  English  parishes  was 
expressly  declared  in  Mr.  Wilson's  protest 
to  that  effect  at  his  ordination  as  teacher  of 
the  Boston  Church.  But  that  the  former 
ministry  was  held  to  confer  no  authority 
over  God's  heritage  in  New  England  was 


The  Puritan  Exodus  53 

made  equally  explicit  by  the  declaration  of 
George  Phillips,  the  intended  minister  of 
Watertown,  that  if  his  people  ''will  have 
him  stand  minister  by  that  calling  which  he 
received  from  the  prelates  in  England,  he 
will  leave  them." 

The  churches  thus  constituted  were  dis- 
tinctly Presbyterian  in  their  internal  struc- 
ture, being  governed  by  the  board  of  elders 
with  the  sanction,  either  tacit  or  explicit, 
of  the  brotherhood.  In  their  mutual  rela- 
tions the  churches  were  independent,  yet 
acknowledging  the  duty  of  mutual  helpful- 
ness and  mutual  respect  and  deference. 
But  upon  this  independence  was  one  serious 
limitation.  In  Massachusetts  the  "Great 
and  General  Court"  was,  in  a  very  prac- 
tical sense,  a  Church  court.  None  but 
communicants  in  the  churches  were  either 
electors  to  it  or  eligible  to  it.  It  '*  exer- 
cised a  minute  superintendence,  after  the 
manner  of  the  English  Parliament  and 
Courts    Spiritual,  ...  on    all    manner    of 


54  The  Congregational  ists 

ecclesiastical  subjects"  (Buck's  "Massa- 
chusetts Ecclesiastical  Law,"  21).  In  par- 
ticular the  supreme  authority  of  the  colony 
was  resolved  not  to  lose  any  good  that 
could  be  saved  out  of  that  parochial  system 
under  which  the  England  of  their  time  was 
divided  into  nine  thousand  parishes,  each 
with  its  church  and  minister.  The  arriving 
colonists  were  not  permitted  to  scatter 
through  the  wilderness  at  pleasure.  It  was 
for  the  colonial  government  to  assign  to 
each  successive  company  its  place  of  habi- 
tation, and  to  draw  the  boundaries  of  its 
township,  which  were  also  the  parish 
boundaries,  except  as,  with  the  increase  of 
population,  it  by  and  by  became  expedient 
in  many  cases  to  divide  the  township  into 
two  or  more  parishes.  Each  parish  was 
rigorously  required  to  be  provided  with 
church,  clergy,  meeting-house  and  parson- 
age. It  was  the  purpose  of  the  founders 
that  every  church  should  have  its  well  de- 
fined responsibility  for  every  soul  within  its 


The  Puritan  Exodus  55 

parish  bounds.  The  adjustment  of  relative 
rights  and  duties  between  churches  and 
parishioners  occupied  not  a  little  of  the  at- 
tention of  the  early  colonial  governments. 
The  constitution  of  the  New  England 
churches  of  the  first  generation  may  per- 
haps best  be  characterized  as  Presbyterian- 
ism  with  a  synod  of  lay  delegates.  It  was 
a  long  process  of  evolution  by  which  the 
system  now  known  as  Congregationalism 
came  into  existence. 


CHAPTER  V 

CONTROVERSY   AND   COUNCIL 

"It  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come." 
It  was  only  by  the  pressure  of  severe  exi- 
gencies that  the  polity  of  the  young 
churches  of  New  England  could  be  com- 
pletely shaped.  One  of  the  first  of  them 
was  the  exasperated  controversy  that  arose 
over  the  case  of  Mrs.  Ann  Hutchinson. 
Only  four  years  after  the  settlement  of  Bos- 
ton, and  only  a  year  after  the  arrival  of  the 
great  John  Cotton  to  become  the  teacher  of 
the  Boston  church,  this  admiring  parish- 
ioner of  his  in  the  old  Boston  church  fol- 
lowed him,  attended  by  her  husband,  to  his 
new  field  of  work.  She  had  many  qualifi- 
cations for  a  mischief-maker,  a  kindly  heart 
and  skillful  hand  in  nursing  the  sick,  a 
ready  gift  of  pious  eloquence,  an  inordinate 
56 


Controversy  and  Council         57 

conceit  of  her  superior  holiness  and  her 
special  confidential  relations  with  the  Al- 
mighty, a  pleasant  way  of  gently  flattering 
her  influential  adherents,  and  a  rasping  sar- 
casm for  dissentients.  With  her  weekly 
meeting,  at  first  for  women  only,  in  which 
she  criticised  the  Sunday's  sermons,  dealing 
out  approval  for  Mr.  Cotton  and  her 
brother-in-law  Wheelwright  as  being  in  the 
covenant  of  grace,  and  disparaging  with 
contemptuous  pity  the  rest  of  the  clergy  as 
being  under  the  covenant  of  works,  she 
managed  before  long  to  get  not  only  the 
church  and  the  town  but  the  whole  colony 
into  a  broil.  The  election  of  Governor  was 
made  to  turn  on  the  theological  question; 
and  the  dashing  and  impulsive  young 
Harry  Vane,  newly  arrived  from  England 
with  the  prestige  of  distinguished  family 
and  influence  at  court,  was  made  to  super- 
sede the  wise  and  faithful  Winthrop.  The 
situation  affected  the  fathers  of  the  colony 
with  a  threefold  anxiety:  first,  the  preten- 


58  The  Congregationalists 

sions  of  this  enthusiastic  prophetess  to 
direct  revelations  from  heaven  threatened 
the  foundations  of  the  republic  which  rested 
on  the  sufficiency  of  the  Scripture  as  a 
guide  to  political  as  well  as  personal  life; 
secondly,  the  Hutchinson  conventicle  was 
of  a  schismatic  temper  and  tendency,  pro- 
ducing, if  not  seeking,  the  division  of  the 
Boston  church  into  two  parties  exasperated 
by  personal  irritation;  thirdly,  the  teachings 
of  the  new  leader  seemed  to  be  charged 
with  a  pernicious  and  demoralizing  anti- 
nomianism.  The  case  required  action.  In 
a  fast-day  sermon  to  the  Boston  church, 
Wheelwright,  after  a  manner  usual  with 
the  supersanctified,  essayed  to  "beat 
his  fellow-servants  "  denouncing  them  as 
"Antichrists";  and  was  censured  for  it  at 
the  next  meeting  of  the  General  Court, 
acting  as  representative  of  all  the  churches. 
The  "  Antinomian  Controversy"  would 
not  have  been  entitled  to  so  large  space  in 
so  condensed  a  narrative  as  this,  but  for  its 


Controversy  and  Council        59 

having  been  the  occasion  of  the  first  of 
those  ecclesiastical  councils  which  are  so 
characteristic  of  American  Congregational- 
ism. At  the  invitation  and  at  the  charges 
of  the  colonial  legislature,  a  "synod" 
was  convened  at  Cambridge,  which  in- 
cluded "all  the  teaching  elders  through 
the  country,"  with  "sundry  elders  from 
other  jurisdictions"  and  "messengers 
from  all  the  churches."  From  the  30th 
of  August  to  the  22d  of  September  the 
council  sat  in  solemn,  sometimes  in  tender 
and  tearful  debate.  At  last,  with  an  almost 
unhoped-for  approach  to  unanimity,  it  gave 
its  condemnation  of  eighty-two  errors 
alleged  against  the  party  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son. Even  Mr.  Cotton  was  drawn  into 
substantial  harmony  with  the  council. 
The  whole  course  of  consultation  had  been 
so  wise,  sincere  and  Christian,  that  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop  proposed  that  there  should 
be  annual  synods.  But  the  centripetal 
force  was  well  balanced  by  the  centrifugal. 


6o  The  Congregationalists 

Salutary  as  had  been  the  influence  of  the 
council,  the  opinion  prevailed  that  it  was 
safer  for  the  independence  and  liberty  of 
the  churches  that  such  assemblies  should 
be  convened  only  as  occasion  might  seem 
to  require. 

The  action  of  the  civil  authority  was 
summary  and  severe.  Some  of  the  adher- 
ents of  the  Hutchinson  faction  were  dis- 
franchised; and  the  two  leaders,  Wheel- 
wright and  Mrs.  Hutchinson  herself,  were 
banished.  They  seem  with  little  doubt  to 
have  been  willful  and  insolent  mischief- 
makers  in  the  little  community;  and  in 
their  case,  as  before  in  the  case  of  the 
Browne  brothers  in  Salem,  and  afterwards 
in  the  case  of  Roger  Williams,  it  was  held 
that  persons  who  could  not  get  on  com- 
fortably with  their  neighbors  should  seek 
other  neighborhood.  There  was  more 
justification  and  less  hardship  in  such  a 
judgment,  in  the  feeble  beginnings  of  a 
small  community  than  there  would   have 


Controversy  and  Council         61 

been  afterwards,  under  settled  and  assured 
institutions  and  a  wider  domain. 

The  occasions  for  further  consultation 
among  the  churches  were  not  long  in 
arising.  In  1643,  six  years  from  the  ad- 
journment of  the  first  Cambridge  synod,  a 
meeting  of  the  clergy  of  the  several  colonies 
was  held,  also  at  Cambridge,  at  which 
Cotton  and  Hooker  presided  and  questions 
of  polity  were  discussed.  But  three  years 
more  had  not  passed  before  new  exigencies 
demanded  the  convoking  of  another 
"synod,"  not  of  the  clergy  only  but  of 
the  churches.  To  begin  with,  there  were 
considerable  divergences  of  opinion  and 
practice  in  the  internal  administration  of 
some  leading  churches  of  New  England. 
The  ministers  of  Newbury  and  Hingham, 
going  a  step  beyond  the  generally  accepted 
aristocratic  notion  of  church  government, 
would  limit  the  action  of  the  membership 
to  the  election  of  teaching  and  ruling 
elders;   while  the  general  tendency  of  the 


62  The  Congregationalists 

churches  was  in  the  contrary  direction,  to- 
wards greater  power  and  responsibility  in 
the  private  members.  Secondly,  like  ques- 
tions were  beginning  to  agitate  the  Puritan 
party  in  England,  and  questions  bearing  on 
the  momentous  task  of  the  reorganization 
of  the  Church  of  England  were  formulated 
and  sent  across  the  sea — first  a  series  of 
Nine  Questions  and  then  a  series  of  Thirty- 
two  Questions — which  were  answered  by 
eminent  New  Englanders,  Davenport,  and 
Cotton,  and  Richard  Mather,  but  which 
were  felt  to  be  entitled  to  a  more  authorita- 
tive answer  than  could  be  given  by  in- 
dividuals. But  the  chief  urgency  for  con- 
sultation proceeded  from  the  formidable 
consequences,  destined  to  grow  more 
formidable  still  through  several  agitated 
generations,  of  the  principle  adopted  from 
the  Separatists,  that  the  purity  of  the 
church  was  to  be  sought,  not  by  the 
eliminating  of  unfit  members,  but  by  the 
culling     of    choice     material    for    a    new 


Controversy  and  Council        63 

organization  that  should  decide  on  applica- 
tions for  admission.  The  colonies  had  to 
face  the  fact  that  already  in  1643  a  painfully 
large  proportion  of  the  people  were  stand- 
ing outside  of  the  church.  In  Massa- 
chusetts, where  the  suffrage  was  con- 
ditioned on  church  membership,  the 
active  citizenship  was  reduced  to  an 
oligarchy  of  about  one  in  ten.  It  was  not 
only  felt  as  a  grievance  to  be  thus  shut  out 
from  the  body  politic;  but  some  were 
sincerely  complaining  of  the  spiritual 
privation  of  being  excluded,  themselves 
and  their  families,  from  the  sacraments; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  churches  themselves 
felt  weakened  by  the  exclusion  of  many 
who  could  hardly  be  pronounced  less  fit 
for  church  fellowship  than  those  who 
were  within  the  pale. 

And  yet  it  does  not  appear  that  there  was 
any  intent  on  the  part  of  the  Founders  to 
draw  lines  excluding  from  the  church  any 
sincere  disciple  of  Jesus  Christ.     The  idea 


64  The  Congregationalists 

of  establishing  sectarian  churches  for  a  cer- 
tain style  of  Christian  from  which  other 
sorts  of  Christians  should  be  excluded  be- 
longs to  a  later  age,  and  would  have  been 
abhorrent  to  the  first  generation.  They  sin- 
cerely meant  that  all  the  faithful  Christians 
of  each  town  should  be  the  church  of  that 
town,  exercising  all  the  functions  of  a 
church  free  of  interference  from  without; 
but  in  seeking  this  worthy  object  they  fell 
into  two  grave  mistakes,  i.  In  their  right- 
eous reaction  from  the  miserable  corruption 
of  the  English  parish  churches  they  went  to 
the  opposite  extreme,  not  only  putting  out 
the  demonstrably  unworthy,  but  keeping 
out  those  whose  worthiness  was  not  satis- 
factorily demonstrated.  In  their  diligent 
searchings  of  Scripture  for  rules  of  church 
order,  they  missed  the  lesson  of  the  parable 
of  The  Tares  of  the  Field.  2.  Their  chief 
criterion  of  fitness  for  church  fellowship, 
the  narration  by  the  candidate  of  his  con- 
scious   experience    of    a    change    divinely 


Controversy  and  Council         65 

wrought  in  his  character,  was  most  falla- 
cious, easily  admitting  many  unfit,  but 
practically  excluding  some  whose  lives  ap- 
proved them  to  all  observers  as  being  of 
the  number  of  the  saints.  The  growing 
number  of  good  men  outside  of  the  church, 
some  of  them  claiming  as  of  right  privileges 
which  were  denied  them,  made  a  third  oc- 
casion for  the  Synod  of  Cambridge,  1646-48. 
The  story  of  the  summoning  of  the 
synod,  its  gathering  from  the  four  colonies, 
its  successive  adjournments,  and  the  polit- 
ical difficulties  in  which  it  was  somewhat 
implicated — "  is  it  not  written  in  the  chron- 
icles?" It  may  be  found  exact  and  ample 
in  Professor  Walker's  "Creeds  and  Plat- 
forms." The  seventeen  chapters  of  the 
Cambridge  "Platform  of  Church  Discipline 
Gathered  out  of  the  Word  of  God"  em- 
bodied the  results  of  twenty  years  of  study 
and  experience,  and  remained  for  a  hun- 
dred years  an  authoritative  statement  of  the 
polity  of  the  New  England  churches.     The 


66  The  Congregationalists 

titles  of  the  chapters  indicate  the  subject- 
matter. 

**  Chapter  I.  Of  the  Form  of  Church 
Government,  and  that  it  is  one,  immutable, 
and  prescribed  in  the  Word  of  God. 

"  Chapter  II.  Of  the  Nature  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  in  general,  and  in  special,  of  a 
particular  visible  church. 

"  Chapter  III.  Of  the  Matter  of  the  Visi- 
ble Church,  both  in  respect  of  Quality  and 
Quantity. 

''Chapter  IV.  Of  the  Form  of  a  Visible 
Church,  and  of  church  covenant. 

"Chapter  V.  Of  the  first  subject  of 
Church  Power;  or,  to  whom  church  power 
doth  first  belong. 

"Chapter  VI.  Of  the  Officers  of  the 
Church,  and  especially  of  pastors  and 
teachers. 

"Chapter  VII.  Of  Ruling  Elders  and 
Deacons. 

"  Chapter  VIII.  Of  the  Election  of  Church 
Officers. 


Controversy  and  Council        67 

"Chapter  IX.  Of  Ordination  and  Impo- 
sition of  Hands. 

"Chapter  X.  Of  the  Power  of  the 
Church,  and  its  Presbytery. 

"Chapter  XI.  Of  the  Maintenance  of 
Church  Officers. 

"Chapter  XII.  Of  Admission  of  Mem- 
bers into  the  Church. 

"Chapter  XIII.  Of  Church  Members: 
their  removal  from  one  church  to  another; 
and  of  letters  of  recommendation  and  dis- 
mission. 

"Chapter  XIV.  Of  Excommunication 
and  other  Censures. 

"Chapter  XV.  Of  the  Communion  of 
Churches  one  with  another. 

"Chapter  XVI.     Of  Synods. 

' '  Chapter  XVII.  Of  the  Civil  Magistrate's 
Power  in  Matters  Ecclesiastical." 

It  is  of  practical  as  well  as  historical  in- 
terest to  us  of  the  present  age  to  note  the 
points  at  which  existing  Congregational 
churches  have  departed  from  this  early  type. 


68  The  Congregationalists 

I.  The  high  jure  divino  pretensions  of 
the  Founders  that  theirs  is  the  only  author- 
ized and  prescribed  form  of  church  govern- 
ment, if  sometimes  entertained,  are  now 
rarely  urged. 

II.  The  negative  statement  that  the  New 
Testament  church  was  "neither  national, 
provincial  nor  classical,"  but  ''  only  congre- 
gational," is  still  accepted  by  Congregation- 
alists. 

III.  The  principle  that  a  church  should 
consist  of  "saints  by  calling"  and  of  *'the 
children  of  such,  who  are  also  holy,"  is  ac- 
cepted in  statement,  even  when  disregarded 
in  practice;  but  the  principle  enunciated 
with  emphasis  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 
*'  Platform,"  that  a  minister  is  such  only  by 
virtue  of  his  election  to  office  in  a  congre- 
gation, and  has  no  ministerial  standing  out- 
side of  that  congregation  or  after  the  close 
of  his  ofiFicial  function  therein,  however  es- 
sential to  the  logical  unity  of  the  system,  is 
generally  abandoned,  and  the  idea  of  a  min- 


Controversy  and  Council        69 

isterial  order,  against  which  the  fathers  pro- 
tested, is  generally  accepted. 

IV.  The  assertion  that  a  mutual  covenant 
is  the  necessary  condition  of  the  existence 
of  a  church,  and  the  only  source  of  church 
authority,  if  accepted  and  acted  on  by  mod- 
ern Congregationalists  in  the  internal  af- 
fairs and  mutual  relations  of  their  churches, 
is  frankly  abandoned  by  their  recognition 
of  churches  otherwise  constituted.  Hap- 
pily, the  "Platform"  cautiously  provides 
that  a  covenant  merely  implied,  "without 
any  writing  or  expression  of  words  at  all," 
may  be  valid. 

V.  The  tenet  that  church  authority,  by 
the  charter  of  the  church,  which  is  the  New 
Testament,  is  vested  primarily  in  the  broth- 
erhood, is  accepted;  but  that  it  is  to  be 
exercised  only  in  the  election  of  elders  is 
generally  declined. 

VI.  and  Vll.  The  ideal  of  the  Founders 
was  that  each  church  should  be  equipped 
with  its  presbytery  of  not  less  than  three — 


yo  The  Congregationalists 

pastor,  teacher  and  ruling  elders.  The  first 
two  giving  themselves  wholly  to  the  minis- 
try of  the  word  and  sacraments,  were  to 
be  supported  by  the  church.  The  ruling 
elder  was  charged  with  the  executive 
functions  of  the  church,  and  with  not  a 
few  of  the  spiritual.  The  presbytery  were 
jointly  to  administer  the  government  of  the 
church,  with  the  consent  (tacit  or  express) 
of  the  brotherhood.  This  ideal  ceased  to 
be  realized  after  the  first  generation.  The 
distinction  between  pastor  and  teacher,  al- 
ways somewhat  tenuous,  was  insufficient 
to  justify  each  little  congregation  in  the  cost 
of  maintaining  two  ministers.  The  duties 
of  ruling  elder  were  such,  in  point  of  diffi- 
culty and  delicacy  as  the  fit  person  could 
rarely  be  induced  to  undertake.  -Finally, 
the  growing  spirit  of  democracy,  both  in 
state  and  in  church,  was  more  averse  to  the 
vesting  of  church  authority  in  an  elective 
eldership.  At  the  present  day,  the  officers 
of  a  Congregational  church  are  ordinarily  a 


Controversy  and  Council        71 

pastor  and  deacons,  and  such  committees 
as  the  church  may  wish.  The  ideal  of  the 
congregational  presbytery  survives  only  in 
the  ''Standing  Committee"  which  fulfills 
some  of  its  functions. 

VIII  and  IX.  The  sturdy  protest  of  the 
Founders  against  regarding  ordination  as  a 
quasisacrament  conferring  permanent  rank 
among  Christians  has  been  forsaken. 
With  them  ordination  was  nothing  but 
the  solemn  inauguration  of  church  officers 
into  the  places  to  which  they  had  been 
elected.  The  imposition  of  hands  might 
be  by  other  elders  in  the  same  church,  or 
by  some  of  the  people,  or  even  (if  thought 
best)  by  elders  of  other  churches.  A  min- 
ister "clearly  loosed  from  his  office-rela- 
tion "  is  no  longer  a  minister  nor  qualified 
to  act  as  such,  until  again  called  to  office, 
in  which  case  he  may  be  ordained  to  the 
office,  with  imposition  of  hands.  The 
general  practice  of  the  Congregational 
churches  of  the  present  day  proceeds  upon 


72  The  Congregationalists 

the  opposite  theory,  that  ordination  con- 
fers upon  the  subject  a  permanent  minis- 
terial status.  At  his  first  induction  into 
church  office  he  is  said,  in  Presbyterian 
phrase,  to  be  "ordained  and  installed." 
Afterwards,  at  any  future  settlement,  he  is 
said  to  be  simply  "installed"  and  (as  if 
conforming  to  some  sacerdotal  notion  of 
the  "indelibility  of  orders")  the  laying  on 
of  hands  is  solemnly  omitted. 

X.  The  views  of  the  aristocracy  of  the 
eldership  drawn  out  in  detail  in  this  chapter, 
are  no  longer  entertained. 

XI.  The  moral  principle  binding  it  as  an 
obligation  on  those  who  profit  by  the  min- 
istrations of  the  church  to  contribute  to  the 
maintenance  of  it,  are  as  distinctly  recog- 
nized now  as  ever;  the  enforcing  of  these 
obligations  by  the  civil  power  is  no  longer 
resorted  to. 

XII.  In  this  chapter  on  "Admission  of 
Members,"  two  things  are  noteworthy:  i, 
the  rigorous  insistence  on  evidence  of  re- 


Controversy  and  Council         73 

pentance  and  faith,  to  be  presented  by  each 
candidate  in  the  form  of  *'a  personal  and 
public  confession  and  declaring  of  God's 
manner  of  working  upon  the  soul;  "  2,  the 
emphatic  absence  of  any  other  test.  It  is 
the  obvious  intention  of  the  Founders  that 
the  church  of  each  community  was  to  in- 
clude all  penitent  believers  there  dwelling. 
The  notion  that  a  church  might  be  organ- 
ized of  a  certain  class  of  Christians,  from 
which  certain  other  Christians  should  be 
intentionally  excluded  by  a  prescribed  doc- 
trinal or  other  test  was  foreign  to  their 
conception  of  the  church. 

XIII.  Both  in  the  theory  and  in  the  prac- 
tice of  the  early  days,  the  church  assumed 
a  responsibility  for  the  movements  of  its 
members  such  as  would  be  neither  claimed 
nor  conceded  at  present. 

XIV,  XV,  XVI.  The  general  principles 
here  enunciated  have  not  ceased  to  express 
the  views  of  Congregational  churches. 
Throughout  the  "  Platform  "  it  is  to  be  ob- 


74  The  Congregationalists 

served  that  while  "  high  "  views  of  the  au- 
thority of  the  eldership  are  set  forth;  never- 
theless, in  distinct  contradiction  to  the 
Presbyterianism  of  Newbury  and  Hingham, 
it  is  recognized  that  the  ultimate  authority 
in  questions  of  admitting  or  excluding  is 
vested  in  the  brotherhood.  The  demo- 
cratic principle  thus  laid  down  as  of  divine 
authority  has  gained  more  and  more  in  gen- 
eral recognition  and  in  width  of  application. 
XVII.  It  is  much  to  the  honor  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  synod  that  the  concluding 
chapter  **  Of  the  Civil  Magistrates'  Power 
in  Matters  Ecclesiastical,"  contains  so  little 
to  provoke  the  dissent  of  later  ages.  A 
change  that  is  rather  of  practice  than  of 
principle  has  necessarily  followed  upon  the 
change  from  homogeneous  communities  to 
communities  divided  by  the  widest  di- 
vergences of  opinion  and  organization.  A 
worthy  jealousy  of  that  Erastianism  of  the 
English  Church  which  their  souls  abhorred, 
saved  them  from  grave  mistakes. 


Controversy  and  Council         75 

Two  of  the  topics  commended  to  the 
Synod  by  the  General  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts received  little  attention.  The  growing 
difficulties  attending  on  the  question  of 
"baptism  and  the  persons  to  be  received 
thereto,"  were  left  unsolved.  The  duty  of 
preparing  a  Confession  setting  forth  the 
doctrinal  tenets  held  in  common  by  the 
Christians  of  New  England  was  superseded 
by  the  timely  arrival,  fresh  from  the  hands 
of  its  makers,  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession, which  met  with  the  unanimous  and 
glad  approval  of  the  Synod,  "  for  the  sub- 
stance thereof,"  as  *' very  holy,  orthodox 
and  judicious  in  all  matters  of  faith."  For 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  the 
Westminster  standards  continued  to  be  re- 
ferred to  by  men  of  differing  theological 
parties  as  expressing  the  common  belief  of 
the  churches;  and  in  families  and  even  in 
the  common  schools  the  "  Shorter  Cate- 
chism "  was  used  as  a  manual  of  religious 
instruction. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HALF-WAY   COVENANT 

The  question  which  the  synod  at  Cam- 
bridge had  pushed  aside  still  insisted  on  an 
answer.  A  conflict  seemed  to  be  growing 
more  serious  with  the  lapse  of  every  year, 
between  two  ideals,  both  dear  to  the  Puri- 
tan heart: — the  purity  of  the  church,  as 
consisting  of  "  visible  saints  and  their  chil- 
dren," and  the  parish  system  by  which  the 
whole  population  of  the  several  towns 
should  be  held  under  the  tutelage  of  the 
churches.  The  growing  danger  was  seri- 
ously felt  by  both  parties.  The  churches 
and  pastors  saw  the  increasing  number  of 
those  who  failed  to  pass  the  accepted  cri- 
teria of  membership,  and  were  in  danger 
of  drifting  afar  from  any  relation  to  the 
church;  and  on  the  other  hand  those  who 
76 


Half- Way  Covenant  77 

had  been  baptized  into  the  church,  who 
held  and  cherished  the  truth  that  had  been 
taught  them,  and  whose  lives  were  without 
reproach,  but  who  were  unable  to  testify  to 
the  conscious  experience  of  a  spiritual 
change  from  death  to  life,  found  not  only 
themselves  debarred  from  the  communion, 
but  their  children  excluded  from  baptism 
as  aliens  and  "strangers  from  the  cove- 
nants of  the  promise."  The  situation  was 
growing  each  year  more  tense,  and  there 
were  tendencies  in  two  opposite  directions 
towards  a  solution  of  it.  One  was  towards 
the  severely  logical  individualism  of  the 
Baptists,  which  had  no  place  for  infant 
baptism  or  infant  church-membership. 
The  other  was  towards  "the  parish  way," 
or  the  Presbyterian  way,  according  to 
which  the  baptized  children  of  the  parish, 
arriving  at  years  of  discretion  and  being 
without  reproach,  were  all  to  be  welcomed 
to  the  Lord's  table.  That  the  accepted 
criterion  of  fitness  for  church-membership 


78  The  Congregationalists 

was  fallacious,  that,  strictly  applied,  it 
would  have  excluded  from  communion  the 
foremost  theologian  and  saint  of  the  con- 
temporary Puritan  party,  Richard  Baxter, 
was  not  going  to  be  made  entirely  clear  to 
their  successors  until  six  generations  after- 
wards (1847)  by  Horace  Bushnell  in  his 
treatise  of  "  Christian  Nurture." 

The  divergence  of  opinion  and  of  practice 
was  so  great  and  so  manifestly  increasing 
as  to  call  for  action  on  the  part  of  the 
colonial  legislatures — always  prone  to  an 
exorbitant  sense  of  their  responsibility  in 
spiritual  matters.  In  1657  the  Massachu- 
setts General  Court,  moved  thereto  by 
Connecticut,  invited  a  conference  of  lead- 
ing pastors  who,  gathering  at  Boston  to  the 
number  of  seventeen,  gave  counsel  de- 
cidedly in  favor  of  a  more  relaxed  rule  than 
that  of  the  Founders.  But  this  was  far 
from  appeasing  the  controversy.  The 
sincere  and  painful  anxiety  of  such 
venerated  men  as  Davenport  and  Charles 


Half-Way  Covenant  79 

Chauncy  prevailed  with  many  others 
against  any  abatement  of  the  conditions  of 
membership  in  the  church.  A  true  synod, 
including  not  ministers  only  but  "mes- 
sengers of  the  churches,"  was  summoned 
to  meet  at  Boston  in  1662,  and  the  number 
in  attendance — more  than  seventy — was 
proof  of  the  gravity  of  the  question  at 
issue.  After  protracted  and  earnest  dis- 
cussion, by  a  great  majority  but  in  face  of 
an  earnest  protest  from  some  of  the  best 
men,  the  main  question  before  the  synod 
was  thus  resolved: 


"Church-members  who  were  admitted 
in  minority,  understanding  the  doctrine  of 
faith  and  publicly  professing  their  assent 
thereto;  not  scandalous  in  life,  and 
solemnly  owning  the  covenant  before  the 
church,  wherein  they  give  up  themselves 
and  their  children  to  the  Lord  and  subject 
themselves  to  the  government  of  Christ 
in  the  church, — their  children  are  to  be 
baptized." 

It  was  an  illogical  compromise  between 


8o  The  Congregationalists 

irreconcilable  principles.  It  came,  indeed, 
into  general  use  in  New  England,  but 
never  with  universal  consent.  Instead  of 
ending  controversy,  it  intensified  it,  giving 
rise  to  a  copious  polemical  literature.  In 
conspicuous  instances,  as  in  Hartford  and 
in  Boston,  it  rent  churches  asunder.  From 
New  Haven  the  great  and  good  Davenport, 
foreseeing  the  ruin  about  to  befall  his 
cherished  ideals  through  the  merger  of  that 
little  republic  with  Connecticut,  left  behind 
him  the  fair  plain  that  was  dearer  to  his 
heart  than  native  land,  exclaiming  *'in  New 
Haven  Colony  Christ's  interest  is  miserably 
lost,"  and  went  to  assume,  in  his  old  age, 
the  pastoral  office  in  the  First  Church  in 
Boston,  from  which  many  members  had 
withdrawn  to  practise  the  less  rigid  system 
in  the  Third  Boston  Church— the  ''Old 
South."  The  "  Half- Way  Covenant"  con- 
tinued in  general  use  for  nearly  a  century, 
until  it  melted  away  in  the  fervent  heat  of 
"the     Great     Awakening,"    or     withered 


Halt- Way  Covenant  81 

under     the     rigors     of     the     Edwardean 
theology. 

An  even  larger  relaxation  of  the  condi- 
tions of  church  communion  was  proposed 
by  one  of  the  saintliest  and  most  spiritually 
successful  pastors  of  the  time — Solomon 
Stoddard  of  Northampton.  He  held  that 
the  baptized  church-member  sound  in 
doctrine  and  of  unblemished  life  should  be 
not  merely  admitted  to  a  quasi-fellowship, 
transmissible  in  turn  to  his  children,  but 
welcomed  to  full  communion,  with  the 
hope  that  the  sacraments  of  the  church 
would  be  effectual,  with  the  word,  in  the 
work  of  grace  of  which  the  candidate  had 
been  thus  far  unconscious.  This  view  and 
practice  gained  not  a  little  currency.  It  was 
a  frank  abandonment  of  the  church-princi- 
ple which  the  Founders  had  adopted  from 
the  Separatists  of  Plymouth.  Under  the  in- 
fluence of  Stoddard's  grandson,  colleague, 
and  successor  in  the  Northampton  church, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  churches  began  the 


82  The  Congregationalists 

painful  return  to  their  earlier  principles.  At 
the  present  day  those  principles  are  gener- 
ally held  in  the  Congregational  churches  of 
America;  but  with  an  intelligence  and 
liberality  in  the  application  of  them,  by 
which  some  of  the  embarrassments  en- 
countered in  the  early  days  are  avoided. 


CHAPTER  VII 

REFORMATION   AND   INNOVATION 

The  hopes  that  had  been  honestly  enter- 
tained of  great  good  to  churches  and  peo- 
ple, to  result  from  the  successive  councils 
of  pastors  and  of  churches  were  not  real- 
ized. At  the  end  of  a  half  century  from 
the  great  Puritan  migration,  the  men  of  the 
second  generation  looked  about  them  on 
that  field  in  which,  in  prayer  and  suffering 
and  eager  hope,  the  fathers  had  sowed 
"  wholly  a  right  seed,"  and  felt  something 
of  the  dismay  with  which  the  servants  of 
the  householder  put  to  their  lord  the  ques- 
tion, "Whence  then  hath  it  tares?"  This 
garden  of  the  Lord  seemed  overrun  with 
foul  weeds.  Through  what  agitating  vicis- 
situdes these  colonies  had  passed,  in  these 
fifty  years!  The  tyranny  of  Charles  and 
Laud,  that  had  sent  the  fathers  of  New 
83 


84  The  Congregationalists 

England  across  the  ocean,  had  given  place 
to  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Common- 
wealth, and  this  in  turn  to  the  Protectorate. 
And  now,  at  last,  the  Restoration  had  placed 
the  perfidious  Stuarts  again  in  power,  and 
was  threatening  to  exterminate  the  char- 
tered liberties  of  the  colonies,  and  over- 
throw their  institutions,  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical. On  our  own  side  of  the  sea,  the 
noble  figures  of  the  first  leaders  were  no 
more  seen ;  only  a  few  venerable  heads,  as 
of  John  Eliot  and  Governor  Bradstreet,  re- 
mained of  all  that  goodly  fellowship. 
There  were  many  signs  of  outward  pros- 
perity. The  three  pioneer  churches  of 
Plymouth,  Salem  and  Boston  had  grown  to 
some  six  score.  But  it  seemed  to  some 
that  he  who  had  multiplied  the  people  had 
not  increased  the  joy.  There  had  been 
failure  of  crops  and  shipwrecks  at  sea. 
The  colonies  had  been  scourged  by  pesti- 
lences. The  long  peace  with  the  Indians — 
reward  of  just  and  generous  dealing  with 


Reformation  and  Innovation      85 

them  on  the  part  of  the  colonists — had 
been  followed  by  the  horrors  and  desola- 
tions of  King  Philip's  war.  These  were 
only  part  of  the  multiplying  disasters  which 
stirred  men's  minds  to  ponder  "the  causes 
and  state  of  God's  controversy  "  with  the 
people.  A  memorial  to  the  General  Court 
of  Massachusetts  was  presented  by  eighteen 
of  the  clergy  led  by  Increase  Mather,  then 
easily  the  foremost  man  in  New  England, 
asking  that  a  synod  of  the  churches  be 
called  to  consider  the  questions:  What  are 
the  evils  that  have  provoked  the  Lord  to 
bring  his  judgment  on  New  England  ?  and 
What  is  to  be  done  that  those  evils  may  be 
reformed  ? 

Thus  was  constituted  **The  Reforming 
Synod,"  whose  answer  to  the  first  question 
proposed  recounted  thirteen  prevailing  evils 
as  signs  of  growing  worldliness  and  un- 
godliness; and  to  the  second  question  pre- 
scribed twelve  remedies:  i.  Good  exam- 
ple on  the  part  of  those  in  authority,  in 


86  The  Congregationalists 

family,  in  church  and  in  state.  2.  A  re- 
newed declaration  of  adherence  to  "the 
faith  and  order  of  the  Gospel."  3.  Greater 
strictness  in  admitting  to  full  communion. 
4.  Faithfulness  in  church  discipline,  not 
only  towards  parents,  but  towards  the  chil- 
dren of  the  church.  5.  The  restoration  of 
the  complete  ministry,  in  each  church,  of 
pastor,  teacher,  and  ruling  elders.  6.  That 
the  magistrates  should  see  to  it  that  the 
church  officers  have  due  support.  7.  Faith- 
ful execution  of  wholesome  laws,  in  par- 
ticular the  laws  restricting  the  sale  of  strong 
drink.  8.  The  solemn  and  explicit  renewal 
of  covenant.  9.  In  such  renewal,  distinct 
pledges  of  reformation  of  prevailing  sins. 
10.  In  renewing  covenant,  that  the  churches 
agree  in  common  vows  "to  promote  the 
interest  of  holiness  and  close  walking  with 
God."  II.  Effectual  care  for  the  schools 
and  the  college.  12.  Earnest  prayer  that 
God  "  would  be  pleased  to  rain  down  right- 
eousness upon  us." 


Reformation  and  Innovation      87 

The  remaining  task  of  "The  Reforming 
Synod"  was  an  easy  one.  Already  the 
Westminster  Confession  had  been  formally 
and  sincerely  declared  to  express  the  doc- 
trinal belief  of  the  New  England  churches; 
and  it  is  wonderful  how  little,  in  an  age  of 
earnest  theological  study,  had  been  the  de- 
flection from  that  standard.  The  very  slight 
amendments  to  that  document  proposed  at 
the  Synod  of  "the  Congregational  Churches 
of  England"  at  the  Savoy  in  London  in 
1658  sufficed  to  make  it  representative  of 
the  singularly  unanimous  opinions  of  the 
Massachusetts  churches  of  1680.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  Congregationalism  on  both 
sides  of  the  sea,  that  this  "Declaration" 
was  intended  in  "no  way  to  be  made  use 
of  as  an  imposition  upon  any."  The  set- 
ting up  of  prescribed  forms  of  doctrinal 
statement  to  which  assent  should  be  ex- 
acted, was  the  device  of  a  later  age. 

The  "  Reforming  Synod  "  was  the  last  of 
the  church  councils  summoned  by  civil  au- 


88  The  Congregationalists 

thority  in  Massachusetts.  In  the  political 
changes  of  England,  the  theocratic  govern- 
ment of  the  colony  had  lapsed  and  the  royal 
governors  and  their  councillors  had  no  mind 
to  act  as  nursing  fathers  to  the  churches. 
And  yet  there  were  not  wanting  urgent  oc- 
casions for  the  sort  of  tutelage  which  the 
General  Court  had  been  wont  to  exercise. 
An  event  occurred  in  Boston  in  1699,  which 
made  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  American 
Congregationalism,  and  at  the  time  pro- 
foundly grieved  and  even  alarmed  those 
who  cherished  the  New  England  theology 
and  polity.  A  small  group  of  young  men 
of  high  consideration,  including  some  men 
of  property,  built  a  new  meeting-house 
and  organized  a  fourth  Boston  church— the 
'*  Brattle  Church  "—announcing  at  the  same 
time,  on  the  one  hand,  their  adherence  to 
the  doctrinal  standards  of  Cambridge  and 
Westminster,  and  on  the  other  their  distinct 
departure  from  some  of  the  prevailing 
usages  of  the  colony.     They  desired  that 


Reformation  and  Innovation      89 

the  ordeal  of  a  public  recital  of  one's  inti- 
mate spiritual  experiences  should  no  longer 
be  imposed  upon  candidates  for  member- 
ship in  the  church;  that  not  communicants 
only,  but  all  who  shared  in  supporting  the 
minister  should  be  allowed  a  voice  in  his 
election;  that  any  child  might  receive  bap- 
tism, who  should  be  presented  by  Christian 
sponsors;  and  that  in  the  services  of  public 
worship  there  might  be  used  the  simple 
reading  of  Scripture  without  comment,  and 
also  the  Lord's  Prayer.  These  demands, 
formulated  in  a  "Manifesto,"  were  of 
themselves  sufficiently  startling  to  the  the- 
ologians of  the  time  and  place;  but  the 
mode  of  procedure  in  the  institution  of  the 
new  church  was  even  more  offensive.  Re- 
spectfully invoking  the  fraternal  fellowship 
of  the  neighbor  churches,  they  nevertheless 
effected  their  organization  without  advice 
or  consent  of  council.  Under  the  old 
regime,  the  civil  authorities  would  have 
had  somewhat  to  say  in  the  case;  but  as 


go  The  Congregationalists 

things  now  stood,  the  Act  of  Toleration, 
enacted  for  the  relief  of  dissenters  from  the 
established  Church  of  England  was  equally 
a  protection  to  a  departure  from  the  ways 
of  the  established  churches  of  New  Eng- 
land. But  a  still  more  distinct  affront  to  the 
principles  of  the  fathers  was  the  course 
pursued  in  the  settlement  of  Benjamin  Col- 
man  as  pastor.  He  was  in  England  at  the 
time,  and  rather  than  encounter  the  exas- 
perated prejudices  of  the  Boston  clergy,  he 
was  advised  to  procure  ordination  ''sine 
titulo''  from  the  Presbytery  of  London. 
Both  the  ordination  and  the  assumption  of 
office  which  followed  were  an  open  de- 
fiance of  the  example  of  the  fathers  and  of 
their  principles  as  enunciated  a  half-century 
before  in  the  Cambridge  Platform.  It  was 
much  to  the  credit  of  the  Boston  churches 
that  they  could  condone  such  irregularities 
and,  with  not  much  delay,  receive  "the 
Manifesto  church  "  to  fellowship.  But  the 
indignation  of  conservative  men,  like  the 


Reformation  and  Innovation      91 

Mathers,  father  and  son,  was  great.  The 
foundations  were  destroyed,  and  what 
should  the  righteous  do  ?  Increase  Mather, 
recounting  these  and  other  innovations,  de- 
clared "if  we  espouse  such  principles  as 
these,  we  give  away  the  whole  Congrega- 
tional cause  at  once,  and  a  great  part  of  the 
Presbyterian  discipline  also."  Nevertheless 
the  new  church  took  root  and  flourished. 

In  their  reasonable  fears  of  a  general 
wreck  of  the  church-system  planted  at 
such  cost  and  attended  by  so  many  signs 
of  divine  blessing,  the  churches  missed  the 
salutary  constraint  and  guidance  of  the 
Christian  magistrate,  so  lately  withdrawn. 
In  view  of  the  possibilities  of  disorder  that 
loomed  before  them,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
serious  thoughts  arose  of  what  good  results 
might  follow  from  a  more  solid  organiza- 
tion of  ministers  and  churches  for  mutual 
control  and  supervision.  The  matter  was 
pondered  in  the  several  neighborhood  meet- 
ings of  pastors,  and  in  the  general  Minis- 


92  The  Congregationalists 

ters'  Convention  at  Boston  in  1704,  and  the 
result  was  a  draft  of  constitution  for  a 
"  consociational "  system  like  what,  only 
three  years  later,  was  carried  into  effect  in 
Connecticut,  under  the  Saybrook  Platform. 
The  current  of  feeling  was  setting  strongly 
in  this  direction.  It  is  only  the  tiro  in 
church  history  who  will  be  surprised  to 
find  in  the  front  rank  of  this  conservative 
reaction  the  names  of  some  of  the  leaders 
in  the  liberal  innovations  of  ''the  Manifesto 
church." 

It  was  only  in  Connecticut  that  the  con- 
sociational  system  went  into  practical 
operation.  This  colony,  happy  in  its  com- 
parative obscurity,  had  escaped  the  revolu- 
tion that  had  overthrown  the  Massachusetts 
theocracy.  Almost  unimpaired  by  foreign 
interference  it  maintained  the  popular  in- 
stitutions devised  by  the  genius  of  Thomas 
Hooker.  Its  legislature  still  had  power, 
and  only  too  ready  a  will,  to  exercise  its 
episcopal    jurisdiction    over  the  churches. 


Reformation  and  Innovation      93 

This  lay  body  felt,  not  less  keenly  than  the 
clerical  meetings  in  Massachusetts,  the 
perils  of  the  times.  Not  without  cor- 
respondence with  the  leading  ministers  of 
the  older  colony,  the  General  Assembly 
was  moved  to  enact  a  statute  "ordaining 
and  requiring "  that  in  each  county  the 
ministers,  with  such  messengers  as  the 
churches  should  see  fit  to  appoint,  should 
meet  and  consider  the  subject  of  methods 
of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  that  each  of 
these  county  meetings  should  send  two 
or  more  delegates  to  Saybrook,  at  the  next 
Commencement  of  the  infant  College,  and 
that  the  synod  thus  constituted  should 
"draw  a  form  of  ecclesiastical  discipline" 
to  be  submitted  to  the  legislature  for  ap- 
proval, at  its  next  session.  The  result  of 
the  synod's  deliberation  was  the  fifteen 
articles  of  "  The  Saybrook  Platform." 
This,  being  submitted  to  the  legislature, 
was  eagerly  approved,  with  an  ordinance 
that  the  churches  "thus  united  in  doctrine, 


94  The  Congregationalists 

worship  and  discipline  be,  and  for  the 
future  shall  be  owned  and  acknowl- 
edged, established  by  law."  The  Platform 
provided  for  one  or  more  Associations  of 
ministers  in  each  county,  and  that  con- 
terminous with  the  district  of  each  As- 
sociation should  be  a  standing  council  or 
"Consociation"  of  churches,  in  which 
each  church  should  be  represented  by 
pastor  and  delegate,  and  which  should  take 
judicial  cognizance  of  cases  brought  before 
it,  and  "hear  and  determine"  them.  Ac- 
cording as  its  provisions  might  be  con- 
strued rigorously  or  liberally,  the  Platform 
would  be  either  tantamount  to  a  Presbyte- 
rian discipline,  or  would  be  a  methodized 
form  of  promoting  the  fraternal  fellowship 
of  the  churches.  This  divergence  of  inter- 
pretation was  put  upon  the  instrument 
from  the  beginning.  In  Fairfield  County 
the  high-church  Presbyterian  construction 
prevailed.  In  the  contiguous  county  of 
New  Haven,  the  Platform  was  ratified  by 


Reformation  and  Innovation      95 

the  representatives  of  the  churches,  as  a 
means  of  promoting  communion  of 
churches,  only  with  express  reservation 
of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  churches. 
The  consociation  system  continued  in  more 
or  less  vigorous  life  for  a  century  and  a 
half,  though  meanwhile  the  legal  sanction 
of  it  had  been  repealed.  The  historical  dis- 
course at  the  one  hundreth  and  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  Synod  of  Saybrook  was  spoken 
of  by  some,  at  the  time,  as  "the  funeral  ser- 
mon of  the  Saybrook  Platform."  The  same 
meeting  of  the  General  Association  of  the 
State  witnessed  the  inception  of  a  system  of 
church  **  conferences  "  for  mere  purposes 
of  fellowship  and  practical  evangelization, 
having  no  governmental  function;  and  by 
these  the  standing  councils  of  consociation 
have  been  gradually  and  generally  super- 
seded. 

The  current  which,  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  was  setting  so  strong 
towards  a  more  compacted  government  of 


96  The  Congregatlonalists 

the  churches,  arrived  at  nothing  in  Massa- 
chusetts. In  Connecticut  it  created  a  dis- 
tinct type  of  Congregationalism,  having 
affinities  with  Presbyterianism,  with  which 
by  and  by  it  was  to  enter  into  an  alliance 
that  should  have  an  important  influence  on 
the  course  of  American  church  history. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A   DEMOCRATIC   REACTION 

The  powerful  current  which,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, was  setting  towards  confederation 
in  church  government,  bearing  on  its  sur- 
face the  most  eminent  leaders  of  society, 
did  not  long  flow  without  encountering  a 
more  powerful  counter-current,  or  rather 
undertow. 

While  the  Puritan  institutions,  in  both 
church  and  state,  had  been  of  a  notably 
aristocratic  character,  the  whole  condition 
of  society  was  tending  more  and  more  to- 
wards democracy.  This  tendency,  in  the 
Bay  Colony,  was  not  hindered  but  rather 
intensified  by  the  recurring  conflict  with 
intrusions  of  court  and  parliament  and 
bishops,  and  by  the  arrogance  of  the  petty 
vice-regal  court  and  its  adherents  of  "the 
97 


gS  The  Congregationalists 

sect  of  the  Herodians."  While  the  Mathers 
and  other  eminent  conservatives  were 
planning  measures  for  limiting  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  individual  church,  and  for 
confirming  the  control  of  the  eldership,  a 
contrary  feeling  was  growing  in  the 
popular  heart,  and  was  about  to  come  to 
commanding  expression. 

John  Wise,  one  of  the  foremost  names  in 
American  literature  of  the  colonial  period, 
was  a  Protestant  of  the  Protestants.  His 
first  appearance  in  history  is  in  the  act  of 
protesting  in  the  town  meeting  of  Ipswich 
against  a  tax  unlawfully  imposed  by  Gov- 
ernor Andros,  a  protest  so  bold  and  effect- 
ive that  the  speaker  was  arrested,  deposed 
from  his  office  of  pastor,  and  imprisoned. 
When  Andros  was  overthrown  and  (in  his 
turn)  imprisoned,  the  pastor,  now  restored 
to  his  charge,  and  recognized  as  a  tribune 
of  the  people,  lent  a  strong  hand  in  the  re- 
organization of  the  government;  he  was 
chaplain  to  the  colonial  troops  in  Governor 


A  Democratic  Reaction         99 

Phips's  Canada  expedition,  and  proved  his 
bravery  in  the  field  as  well  as  his  prowess 
in  debate.  This  was  the  man,  "  the  first 
great  American  democrat,"  as  Prof.  Moses 
Coit  Tyler  has  styled  him,  who  boldly 
stepped  into  the  lists,  undeterred  by  the 
supercilious  sneers  of  the  great  men  of  his 
time,  as  champion  of  the  rights  of  the 
churches  and  their  members.  Two  little 
books  of  his  were  an  open  challenge  to 
generally  prevailing  views  and  usages. 
One,  published  in  17 10,  was  entitled: 
"  The  Churches'  Quarrel  Espoused;  or  a  re- 
ply in  satire  to  certain  proposals  made  in 
answer  to  this  question,  What  further 
steps  "  [are  to  be  taken,  that  the  councils 
may  have  due  constitution  and  efficacy  in 
supporting,  preserving  and  well  ordering 
the  interests  of  the  churches  in  the  coun- 
try] ?  "By  John  Wise,  pastor  to  a  church 
in  Ipswich."  The  title  of  the  other  book, 
published  in  17 17,  was:  "A  Vindication  of 
the  Government  of  New  England  Churches: 


loo        The  Congregationalists 

drawn  from  antiquity;  the  light  of  nature; 
holy  Scripture;  its  noble  nature;  and  from 
the  dignity  divine  providence  has  put  upon 
it."  Critics  are  agreed  in  extolling  the 
originality,  wit,  eloquence  and  power  that 
characterize  these  writings.  They  deal 
with  the  foundation  principles,  not  only  of 
church  government,  but  of  all  government, 
declaring  "that  a  democracy  in  church  or 
state  is  a  very  honorable  and  regular  gov- 
ernment according  to  the  dictates  of  right 
reason."  They  powerfully  influenced  the 
later  development  of  the  New  England 
church  polity,  in  the  direction  both  of  de- 
mocracy within  the  church,  and  independ- 
ence among  the  churches.  And  their  influ- 
ence on  civil  affairs  was  not  less  notable. 
In  1772,  on  the  eve  of  the  war  of  independ- 
ence, these  rousing  defenses  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  were  remembered  and  drawn 
from  their  oblivion  and  reprinted  in  Boston 
in  two  large  editions  in  that  single  year. 
But  admirable  as  they  are  in  themselves, 


A  Democratic  Reaction        loi 

there  is  reason  to  believe  that  they  were  in 
some  measure  consequence  as  well  as  cause 
of  the  tendency  in  the  popular  mind  to- 
wards liberty  and  liberality  in  church  and 
in  state. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A   RETROSPECT 

The  eve  before  the  dawn  of  "  The  Great 
Awakening"  is  an  epoch  from  which  to 
look  backward  over  the  first  century  of  the 
Congregational  churches  of  America. 

The  four  colonies  which  in  1643,  had 
combined  in  the  first  federal  union  in 
America,  were  Plymouth,  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut  and  New  Haven.  These  had 
now  become  merged  into  two,  and  within 
the  boundaries  of  these  two,  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut,  the  system  of  Congrega- 
tional churches  had  had  its  growth  and 
evolution. 

Of  the  ideals  in  the  minds  of  the  Foun- 
ders of  these  churches,  some  had  endured 
with  persistent  vitality.  That  there  should 
be  a  system  of  parish  churches,  every  town 


A  Retrospect  103 

or  precinct  of  a  town  having  its  church 
charged  with  the  oversight  of  the  popula- 
tion, which,  in  turn,  was  under  obligation 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  church — this 
was  the  invaluable  contribution  to  Amer- 
ican civilization  from  the  National  Church 
from  which  the  Puritan  colonists  came 
forth.  In  both  jurisdictions  it  had  been 
maintained  almost  unimpaired.  In  excep- 
tional and  very  rare  cases  a  "poll-parish" 
had  been  created  consisting  of  individuals 
or  families  not  defined  by  boundaries,  but 
adhering  by  choice  to  a  certain  congrega- 
tion. Provision  was  granted,  grudgingly 
at  first,  afterwards  liberally,  for  separate 
meetings  of  dissenters  from  the  parish 
church. 

The  purity  of  the  church,  which  had 
been  a  leading  aim  of  the  colonists  in  their 
migration  into  the  wilderness,  continued  to 
be  insisted  on  with  a  zeal  intensified  by  re- 
membrance of  abuses  in  the  parish  churches 
of  England.     The  church  was  to  be  made 


104        "^^^  Congregationalists 

up  of  ''visible  saints,"  and  must  be  consti- 
tuted by  a  mutual  covenant.  But  the 
adoption  of  impracticable  criteria  of  "vis- 
ible sanctity"  had  led  into  difficulties 
which  inevitably  modified  the  polity  of 
the  churches.  The  notion  that  one's  spir- 
itual state  could  be  diagnosticated  by  a 
study  of  the  "rational  symptoms"  in  each 
case,  led  to  the  exclusion  from  the  privi- 
leges of  the  church  of  many  who  clearly 
ought  not  to  have  been  excluded,  and  so  to 
the  admission  of  them  to  a  quasi-member- 
ship  by  a  "half-way  covenant"  the  terms 
of  which,  honestly  accepted,  implied  unre- 
served Christian  discipleship.  Like  con- 
siderations, together  with  the  popular  prin- 
ciple, "no  taxation  without  represen- 
tation," led  to  the  organization  of  the 
"ecclesiastical  society"  having  charge  of 
the  temporalities  of  the  church,  and  having 
a  vote,  conjointly  with  the  church,  in  the 
election  of  pastor. 
The  refusal,  in  the  first  generation,  to 


A  Retrospect  105 

recognize  any  such  thing  as  a  rank  or  order 
of  ministers  other  than  the  officers,  for  the 
time  being,  of  a  congregation;  and  the 
claim  that  ordination  was  merely  a  form  of 
inaugurating  such  officers  into  their  local 
functions,  had  faded  out.  It  was  coming 
to  be  understood  that  one  who  had  been 
ordained  to  the  ministry  of  one  church  con- 
tinued thereafter  to  be  regarded  in  all  the 
churches  as  of  ministerial  rank. 

The  attempt  of  the  Founders  to  organize 
in  every  church  a  presbytery  of  two  teach- 
ing elders  and  one  or  more  ruling  elders, 
had  fallen  by  its  own  weight  and  costli- 
ness, and  the  general  usage  was  one  minis- 
ter to  each  church.  Thus  the  government 
of  the  congregation,  which  had  been  Pres- 
byterian, when  the  presbytery  dwindled  to 
one  man  became  virtually  episcopal.  The 
polity  was  felt  on  all  hands  to  be  in  peril- 
ously unstable  equilibrium.  An  allegiance 
that  might  be  conceded  to  a  representative 
body  of  three  or  more,  would  become  most 


io6        The  Congregationalists 

precarious  when  claimed  for  a  single  indi- 
vidual. The  escape  from  this  situation  must 
be  either  in  'the  direction  of  classical  gov- 
ernment, as  proposed  in  Massachusetts  and 
effected  in  Connecticut;  or  in  the  rehabili- 
tation of  the  authority  of  the  people,  as 
demanded  by  Robert  Browne  150  years 
before,  and  now  again  by  John  Wise. 

The  principle  of  the  fellowship  of  the 
churches,  illustrated  from  the  beginning 
and  articulated  with  emphasis  in  the  Cam- 
bridge Platform,  had  suffered  no  decline. 
On  the  contrary,  as  the  supervision  of  the 
civil  government  became  relaxed,  and  di- 
vergencies of  sentiment  began  to  appear, 
and  here  and  there  a  dissenting  congrega- 
tion. Baptist  or  Episcopalian,  was  formed, 
the  need  of  mutual  counsel  and  concerted 
action  in  matters  of  grave  moment  and 
common  concern  became  the  more  appar- 
ent. There  was  a  serious  divergence  of 
method  between  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut, one  adhering  to  the  early  practice 


A  Retrospect  107 

of  acting  by  councils  strictly  occasional, 
dissolving  when  the  occasion  ceases,  the 
other  organizing  standing  councils  within 
definite  territories.  There  were  disad- 
vantages in  each  method;  one  was  liable  to 
irregularity,  the  other  trenched  upon  liberty. 
But  there  was  one  form  of  organization 
that  had  taken  permanent  root.  The  "As- 
sociations "  or  clubs  of  neighboring  minis- 
ters for  mutual  improvement  had  come 
into  general  -favor  and  were  found  to  serve 
a  useful  purpose  in  introducing  and  recom- 
mending candidates  to  the  churches,  **  for 
the  trial  of  their  gifts."  By  a  phrase  nat- 
urally borrowed  from  the  Presbyterian  vo- 
cabulary, this  recommendation,  given  after 
examination  of  the  candidate's  qualifica- 
tions, came  to  be  called  a  *'  license  to 
preach."  It  had  no  more  authority  than 
the  churches  chose  to  concede  to  it;  and  (to 
the  credit  of  their  good  sense)  they  com- 
monly conceded  very  much. 
Thus,  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  years, 


io8        The  Congregationalists 

there  had  grown  up  in  these  colonies,  from 
its  roots  in  the  New  Testament  scriptures,  a 
complete  ecclesiastical  polity.  In  twenty 
years  from  the  landing  at  Salem,  the  great 
Puritan  migration  had  ceased  to  flow;  in 
fact  the  reflux,  it  is  estimated,  carried  back 
to  England  more  persons  than  had  originally 
come  thence.  But  their  posterity  had  peo- 
pled the  coasts  of  the  two  colonies  and  the 
Connecticut  River  valley  with  towns  and 
villages,  each  with  its  church  and  its 
"learned  and  orthodox  minister"  and  its 
school;  and  at  cost  of  immense  sacrifice  in 
those  days  of  poverty,  two  colleges,  destined 
to  take  rank  among  the  famous  universities 
of  the  world,  were  training  young  men  in 
the  higher  learning  for  service  in  church 
and  in  civil  state. 

The  constellation  of  great  men  who  had 
presided  over  the  birth  of  these  churches 
had  long  ago  sunk  below  the  horizon. 
Hooker,  Davenport,  Cotton,  Eliot,  Richard 
Mather,  had  been  succeeded  by  men  of  the 


A  Retrospect  109 

second  and  third  generations,  among  whom 
Increase  and  Cotton  Mather  of  Boston  and 
Pierpont  of  New  Haven  were  eminent. 
The  literature  of  the  church  had  grown 
large,  being  copiously  increased  with  every 
new  question  that  emerged.  The  duty  of 
preaching  the  gospel  to  the  heathen  In- 
dians, so  earnestly  laid  to  heart  in  the  first 
beginnings  of  settlement,  had  never  been 
neglected.  The  early  endeavors  of  Roger 
Williams  and  John  Eliot  had  been  supple- 
mented by  the  labors  of  many  a  village  pas- 
tor and  his  church,  favored  by  slender  ap- 
propriations from  that  most  ancient  of 
Protestant  missionary  societies  founded 
under  Oliver  Cromwell. 

And  here  is  a  curious  fact,  not  without 
parallel  in  church  history: — in  these  colo- 
nies, **  whose  end  was  religion,"  where 
every  man  was  a  theologian,  and  the  chief 
themes  of  popular  discussion  were  theolog- 
ical, and  the  literature  was  exclusively  the- 
ological, and  where  variations  of  opinion 


no        The  Congregationalists 

and  divergent  tendencies  were  distinctly  as- 
serting themselves,  there  was  nevertheless 
no  separation  into  theological  parties. 
Under  no  constraint,  and  with  apparent 
sincerity,  there  was  general  agreement  in 
referring  to  the  Westminster  Confession  as 
slightly  amended  by  the  Savoy  Synod  in 
1658,  as  expressing  the  common  belief  of 
the  New  England  churches. 


CHAPTER  X 

GREAT   AWAKENING 

The  third  decade  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury closed  with  the  New  England  churches 
resting  under  a  wide-spread  shadow  of  de- 
pression and  discouragement.  Fifty  years 
before  (1680)  the  ''  Reforming  Synod"  had 
testified  to  a  like  depression;  and  its  warn- 
ing and  exhortation  and  the  *'  mighty  cry  " 
for  divine  help  to  which  it  had  stirred  up 
the  people  had  not  been  in  vain.  There 
had  been  signs  of  renewed  life;  but  the 
torpor  had  come  back  over  the  churches 
"as  the  clouds  return  after  the  rain."  We 
have  not  to  seek  far  to  find  causes  for  the 
spiritual  declension.  The  fifty  years  past 
had  been  years  of  almost  incessant  war 
with  the  Indians,  and  of  political  agitation 
in  Massachusetts.     The  frequent  and  some- 


1 1 2        The  Congregationalists 

times  acrimonious  controversies  over  church 
questions  were  not  usually  means  of  grace. 
But  it  is  common  to  lay  the  chief  blame  for 
the  declension  on  the  general  adoption  of 
the  **  half-v^ay  covenant."  The  real  blame 
was  due  to  the  defective  practical  theology 
that  necessitated  the  half-way  covenant. 
The  notion  that  persons  freely  and  unre- 
servedly pledged  to  every  duty  of  Christian 
discipleship  should  be  debarred  from  the 
communion  of  the  church  simply  for  lack 
of  a  certain  passive  experience  confessedly 
beyond  their  power  to  attain  was  a  notion 
self-condemned  before  honest  consciences. 
To  admit  these  persons  grudgingly  to  a 
**  half-way  "  membership  that  should  em- 
power them  to  present  their  children  for 
baptism,  did  not  solve  the  difficulty.  The 
real  solution  lay  in  recognizing  that  a  will- 
ing heart  for  all  the  will  of  Christ  was  itself 
a  divine  gift  and  an  evidence  of  regener- 
ation. The  fault  of  the  time  was  not  in  re- 
ceiving such  to  **  half-way"  membership. 


Great  Awakening  113 

but  in  not  welcoming  them  to  full  com- 
munion. The  dullness  and  coldness  of  the 
churches  is  often  ascribed  to  the  admission 
of  so  many  as  "  proselytes  of  the  gate  "  to 
a  quasi-membership.  It  might  have  been 
in  some  measure  happily  relieved  by  open- 
ing the  gate  and  admitting  them  to  the  re- 
sponsibilities and  privileges  of  brethren. 

So  thought  Solomon  Stoddard,  whose 
frontier  parish  of  Northampton,  on  the 
Connecticut  River,  was  destined  to  become 
a  central  point  of  interest  in  the  history  of 
these  times.  His  is  a  name  not  to  be  men- 
tioned without  respect  and  even  reverence. 
Born  in  Boston  in  1643,  graduated  at  Har- 
vard in  1662,  and  afterwards  serving  there 
as  tutor  and  librarian,  he  became  minister 
of  Northampton  in  1669,  and  there  re- 
mained for  sixty  honored  and  fruitful  years. 
His  great  dignity  and  holiness  of  character 
added  power  to  his  earnest  preaching;  in  a 
time  when  the  churches  generally  were 
languishing,  his   ministry  was   marked  by 


114        The  Congregationalists 

no  less  than  five  revivals.  From  such  a 
man,  a  protest  against  excessive  rigor  in 
church  administration  came  with  peculiar 
weight.  It  is  well  to  remember  that  it  was 
in  the  year  of  his  graduation  at  Harvard 
that  the  great  synod  was  held  at  Boston,  at 
which  seventy  "elders  and  messengers"  of 
the  churches  did,  "after  much  discussion 
and  consideration  from  the  Word  of  God," 
vote  and  conclude  in  favor  of  the  Half-way 
Covenant.  He  was  no  novice,  but  a  ma- 
ture scholar  of  fifty-seven  years,  and  a  pas- 
tor for  thirty-one  successful  years,  when  he 
published,  in  1700,  his  "Doctrine  of  Insti- 
tuted Churches."  This  was  followed,  nine 
years  later,  after  not  a  little  controversy,  by 
his  "Appeal  to  the  Learned;  being  a  vindi- 
cation of  the  right  of  visible  saints  to  the 
Lord's  Supper,  though  they  be  destitute  of 
a  saving  work  of  God's  Spirit  on  their 
hearts."  It  requires  an  effort  for  us  to  ap- 
prehend the  idea  that  sounds  so  paradox- 
ical, of  "visible  saints "  in  "an  unconverted 


Great  Awakening  115 

condition."  We  may  be  aided  by  reading 
one  of  the  forms  of  this  "  half-way  cove- 
nanting "  in  use  in  a  Boston  church: 

You  now  from  your  heart  professing  a 
serious  belief  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  it 
has  generally  been  declared  and  embraced 
by  the  faithful  in  this  place,  do  here  give  up 
yourself  to  God  in  Christ,  promising  with 
his  help  to  endeavor  to  walk  according  to 
the  rules  of  that  holy  religion  all  your  days; 
choosing  of  God  as  your  best  good  and 
your  last  end,  and  Christ  as  the  Prophet  and 
Priest  and  King  of  your  soul  forever.  You 
do  therefore  submit  unto  the  laws  of  his 
kingdom  as  they  are  administered  in  this 
church  of  his;  and  you  will  also  carefully 
and  sincerely  labor  after  those  more  positive 
and  increased  evidences  of  regeneration 
which  may  further  encourage  you  to  seek 
an  admission  unto  the  table  of  the  Lord. 

There  are  few  pastors  at  the  present  day 
who  are  not  so  far  "Stoddardean"  but  that 
they  would  eagerly  admit  that  one  who 
could  take  this  covenant  intelligently  and 
sincerely  ought  at  once  to  be  welcomed  to 
the  full  communion  of  the  church.  One 
who  would  take  it  otherwise  than  sincerely, 


ll6        The  Congregationalists 

ought  not  to   be   permitted  to  take  it  at 
all. 

It  grows  clear,  as  we  read,  that  the  fa- 
thers of  the  New  England  churches,  in  their 
righteous  reaction  from  the  scandalous  cor- 
ruptness of  the  English  parish  churches,  had 
set  up  an  ultra-scriptural  standard  of  church- 
membership,  the  consequences  of  which,  in 
the  third  and  fourth  generations,  were 
plaguing  their  successors.  Their  "plat- 
forms" and  other  manifestoes  bristled  with 
proof-texts  and  biblical  phrases  in  italic 
type.  But  in  their  overzeal  for  church 
purity  they  had  failed  to  put  due  emphasis 
on  the  parable  of  The  Tares  of  the  Field. 
They  were  bent  upon  keeping  out  the  tares, 
at  whatever  risk  to  the  wheat;  and  they  had 
fixed  a  criterion  of  regenerate  character, 
which  might  seem  to  serve,  in  an  age  of 
deep  emotions,  but  failed  in  calmer  times. 
The  exacting  of  a  recital  of  intimate  spirit- 
ual experiences  neither  spared  the  wheat 
nor  rooted   out  all   the  tares.     Instead   of 


Great  Awakening  117 

frankly  abandoning  it  in  favor  of  some 
more  scriptural  criterion,  like  **  He  that 
doeth  righteousness  is  righteous,"  or  **  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them,"  they  clung 
to  their  "tradition  of  the  elders"  with  the 
illogical  and  mischievous  compromise,  that 
one  who  was  not  prepared  to  pass  their 
arbitrary  ** fencing  of  the  table"  might 
come  halfway.  The  doctrine  of  Stoddard, 
instead  of  a  further  decline  from  the  half- 
way covenant,  was  really,  under  an  infe- 
licitous statement,  a  return  to  sound  prin- 
ciples. 

As  the  sixty-years'  pastorate  of  Stoddard 
drew  towards  its  close,  the  church  and 
parish  of  Northampton  were  sharing  the 
generally  prevalent  inertness.  High  hopes 
were  awakened  when,  in  1727,  the  grand- 
son of  the  aged  pastor  was  ordained  as  a 
colleague.  Well  might  good  men  be  hope- 
ful at  the  coming  of  a  young  man  of  such 
rare  promise  as  this  Jonathan  Edwards.  In 
his  home  at  the  parsonage  at  East  Windsor, 


li8        The  Congregationalists 

Connecticut,  and  in  his  boyhood  at  Yale 
College,  where  he  graduated  at  seventeen, 
he  had  already  manifested  traits  of  genius 
in  philosophy  and  of  holiness  in  character 
which  called  forth  the  admiring  question. 
What  manner  of  man  shall  this  be  ?  After 
two  years  from  his  graduation  passed  at 
New  Haven  in  theological  study,  he  spent 
a  few  months  in  New  York  as  minister  to 
the  feeble  Presbyterian  congregation  lately 
gathered  there,  and  then  returned  to  Yale 
to  serve  for  two  years  as  tutor.  Here,  at 
her  home  in  the  New  Haven  parsonage,  he 
won  the  love  of  Sarah  Pierpont,  a  woman 
worthy  of  himself.  The  little  prose-poem 
in  which  he  describes  to  himself  the 
spiritual  beauties  of  her  character  is  one  of 
the  points  of  the  striking  parallel  between 
Edwards  and  Dante.  The  great  Floren- 
tine's description  of  his  Beatrice  is  not 
more  tenderly  beautiful.  Edwards  was 
twenty-four  years  old  when  he  was  or- 
dained pastor  of  the  Northampton  church. 


Great  Awakening  iig 

When,  a  few  months  later,  he  installed  his 
"espoused  saint"  in  the  parsonage  at 
Northampton,  the  house  became  a  well- 
spring  of  spiritual  influences  for  the  whole 
nation,  the  streams  of  which  have  never 
ceased  to  flow. 

The  newly  inaugurated  ministry  made 
no  break  in  the  traditions  of  the  church. 
Even  the  death  of  the  venerable  Stoddard, 
two  years  after  he  had  laid  his  hands  on 
the  head  of  his  grandson,  does  not  seem  to 
have  led  to  any  departure  from  his  methods. 
It  would  have  been  little  accordant  with  the 
mind  of  the  young  pastor,  to  refuse  to  any 
the  comfort  and  help  of  the  holy  supper, 
on  the  ground  of  their  non-compliance  with 
conditions  with  which  it  was  in  no  sense 
possible  for  them  to  comply.  For  six 
years  his  preaching  of  righteousness 
seemed  as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
At  length  the  faith  and  prayer  of  the 
preacher  were  rewarded  by  some  signs  of 
yielding  to  the  word  of  God.     The  frivolity 


120        The  Congregationalists 

or  wantonness  of  the  youth,  that  had  vexed 
his  righteous  soul,  began  to  be  sobered. 
With  deepening  fervor  he  urged -upon 
men's  hearts  the  familiar  themes,  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  the  awfulness  of  God's 
justice,  the  excellency  of  Christ,  the  duty 
of  pressing  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Presently  a  young  woman,  a  leader  in  the 
village  gayeties,  became  ''serious,  giving 
evidence  of  a  heart  truly  broken  and 
sanctified."  It  was  the  beginning  of  "  The 
Great  Awakening."  The  story  of  the 
revival  cannot  be  better  told  than  in  the 
language  of  Edwards  himself: 

The  work  of  God,  as  it  was  carried  on 
and  the  number  of  true  saints  multiplied, 
soon  made  a  glorious  alteration  in  the 
town,  so  that  in  the  spring  and  summer, 
anno  1735,  the  town  seemed  to  be  full  of 
the  presence  of  God.  It  was  never  so  full 
of  love  nor  so  full  of  joy,  and  yet  so  full 
of  distress,  as  it  was  then.  There  were 
remarkable  tokens  of  God's  presence  in 
almost  every  house.  It  was  a  time  of  joy 
in  families  on  the  account  of  salvation's  be- 
ing brought  unto  them;    parents  rejoicing 


Great  Awakening  121 

over  their  children  as  being  new-born,  and 
husbands  over  their  wives  and  wives  over 
their  husbands.  The  goings  of  God  were 
then  seen  in  his  sanctuary.  God's  day  was 
a  dehght,  and  his  tabernacles  were  amiable. 
Our  public  assemblies  were  then  beautiful; 
the  congregation  was  alive  in  God's  service, 
every  one  intent  on  the  public  worship, 
every  hearer  eager  to  drink  in  the  words  of 
the  minister  as  they  came  from  his  mouth; 
the  assembly  in  general  were  from  time  to 
time  in  tears  while  the  Word  was  preached, 
some  weeping  with  sorrow  and  distress, 
others  with  joy  and  love,  others  with  pity 
and  concern  for  the  souls  of  their  neigh- 
bors. 


But  the  crown  and  glory  of  the  work 
was  when  the  thankful  people  presented 
themselves  before  the  Lord  with  solemn 
acts  of  thanksgiving  and  vows  of  purity 
and  faithfulness  and  charity  in  all  the  duties 
of  daily  life.  By  public  covenant  they  con- 
secrated themselves  to  the  relative  duties  of 
parents  and  children,  husbands  and  wives, 
brothers  and  sisters,  masters,  mistresses 
and  servants. 


122        The  Congregationalists 

The  work  spread  abroad  through  all  the 
Connecticut  Valley  and  the  region  round 
about.  It  was  heard  of  in  the  region  of 
Newark,  planted  by  a  New  England  colony, 
and  of  Elizabeth,  where  Jonathan  Dickin- 
son, a  native  of  Hatfield,  next  town  to 
Northampton,  was  the  foremost  man  of 
New  Jersey  Presbyterianism;  and  the  news, 
as  it  spread,  quickened  the  churches  with 
new  life.  Dr.  Benjamin  Colman  of  Boston 
wrote  to  Edwards  for  the  facts  in  the  case; 
and  his  reply,  forwarded  to  Dr.  Watts  and 
Dr.  Guyse,  was  published  by  them  in  Lon- 
don under  the  title,  "Narrative  of  Surpris- 
ing Conversions."  The  little  book,  carried 
by  John  Wesley  in  his  pocket  on  a  walk 
from  London  to  Oxford,  in  1738,  opened 
his  eyes  to  the  vision  of  new  possibilities 
for  the  kingdom  of  God.  "Surely,"  he 
writes,  "this  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is 
marvellous  in  our  eyes."  That  same  year 
George  Whitefield  sailed  for  Georgia,  to 
take  up  the  work,  in  that  infant  colony,  in 


Great  Awakening  123 

which    his    college    friend,    Wesley,    had 
made  so  painful  a  failure. 

The  waters  that  had  been  stirred  as  by  an 
angel  did  not  return  to  their  long  wonted 
stagnation.  Through  the  long  seaboard 
from  Maine  to  Georgia,  there  was  a  stir  of 
expectant  hope.  In  the  autumn  of  1740,  on 
the  invitation  of  Colman,  Whitefield  made 
a  rapid  progress  through  New  England, 
preaching  at  every  halt,  spending  three 
days  at  Newport,  a  fortnight  in  Boston,  and 
three  days  at  New  Haven,  and  a  few  hours 
each  at  many  other  places.  Never  did 
apostle  more  literally  fulfill  the  command, 
''as  ye  go,  preach."  And  wherever  he 
preached,  he  was  thronged  by  eager,  agi- 
tated, sometimes  weeping  and  fainting  con- 
gregations. No  heart,  it  seemed,  could 
resist  the  power  of  his  incomparable 
eloquence.  And  yet  some  of  those  who 
*'  esteemed  him  most  highly  in  love  for  his 
work's  sake  "  recognized,  with  misgivings, 
the    personal   faults  and  the  mistakes  by 


124        The  Congregationalists 

which  his  work  was  marred.  His  good 
sense  and  modesty  were  not  proof  against 
the  adulations  that  everywhere  waited  on 
him.  He  was  superstitiously  inclined  to  be 
governed  in  his  conduct  by  "impressions  " 
assumed  to  be  divine.  He  was  prone  to 
**  beating  his  fellow-servants,"  his  excessive 
self-conceit  taking  its  common  form  of 
censoriousness  in  the  judgment  of  others. 
He  was  much  addicted  to  inveighing 
against  other  ministers  as  "unconverted," 
declaring  in  Boston,  before  a  great  as- 
sembly including  many  ministers,  that 
"  the  generality  of  preachers  talk  of  an  un- 
known and  unfelt  Christ;  and  the  reason 
why  congregations  have  been  so  dead  is 
because  they  have  had  dead  men  preaching 
to  them."  These  were  faults  that  were  not 
slow  in  bringing  their  penalty.  Imitated 
with  aggravations  by  some  of  the  asso- 
ciates and  followers  of  the  great  preacher, 
who  found  it  easier  to  copy  his  faults  than 
his  inimitable  gifts,  to  what  could  they  lead 


Great  Awakening  125 

but  to  disorder  ?  Following  close  upon 
Whitefield's  flying  tour  through  New  Eng- 
land, came  Gilbert  Tennent  of  New  Jersey, 
whose  abusive  sermon  on  "An  Uncon- 
verted Ministry  "  had  just  split  the  Presby- 
terian Church  into  two  synods,  of  the  Old 
Side  and  the  New  Side — a  schism  that  was 
long  in  healing.  The  hysterical  agitations, 
such  as  the  sober  wisdom  of  Edwards 
sought  to  hold  under  control,  suffered  no 
abatement  under  the  fervid  harangues  of 
Tennent.  For  several  months  in  the  winter 
and  spring  of  1741,  he  continued  his  work 
at  Boston,  sustained  by  the  confidence  of 
some  of  the  best  men  of  the  clergy.  In 
Connecticut,  several  zealous  pastors  left 
their  parishes  for  evangelizing  tours  from 
town  to  town,  not  waiting  for  invitations 
from  the  pastor  in  charge,  but  invading 
other  men's  parishes  at  their  own  discre- 
tion. It  was  impossible  that  such  pro- 
cedures, however  conscientiously  under- 
taken, should  fail  of  giving  offense.     The 


126        The  Congregationalists 

colonial  legislature,  which  had  ever  an 
alacrity  at  meddling  with  church  affairs,  in 
1741  summoned  a  "  General  Consociation  " 
— the  last  Congregational  Synod  called  by 
civil  authority — to  consult  for  "the  true  in- 
terest of  vital  religion."  This  council  pro- 
nounced the  opinion  that  no  minister  ought 
to  preach  or  administer  the  sacraments  in  a 
parish  not  his  own,  without  the  consent  of 
the  settled  minister  of  the  parish.  So  ob- 
vious a  principle  of  good  manners  failed  to 
restrain  the  zeal  of  the  itinerants;  and  the 
legislature  followed  it  up  with  a  law  that 
a  pastor  leaving  his  flock  to  intrude  un- 
invited into  his  neighbor's  should  lose  his 
legal  right  to  collect  his  salary,  and  be 
liable  to  be  put  under  bonds  for  good  be- 
havior. Intruders  from  outside  of  the 
colony  were  liable  to  be  expelled  from 
within  its  borders. 

Admitting  (what  at  this  day  would  be 
generally  denied)  the  right  of  the  govern- 
ment to  interfere  at  all  in  such  matters,  it  is 


Great  Awakening  127 

not  difficult  to  find  justification  for  the 
course  that  was  taken  by  the  legislature. 
If  there  was  any  value  in  the  organization 
of  the  state  into  parishes  each  with  its 
church  and  minister  responsible  for  the  care 
of  its  people,  something  must  be  done  to 
prevent  the  parish  system,  inherited  from 
the  fathers,  from  being  broken  down  by 
headstrong  zealots  breaking  bounds  at  no 
call  but  that  of  an  "  impression  "  alleged  to 
be  divine.  It  was  the  mildest  penalty  that 
the  case  admitted,  to  signify  to  one  quitting 
his  own  parish  on  a  self-appointed  mission 
to  other  men's  parishes,  that  he  must  cease 
thereby  to  draw  a  salary  for  the  work  that 
he  had  ceased  to  do  at  homa  If  they 
should  invade  the  parish  of  a  neighbor  min- 
ister with  the  implication  or  (as  oftener 
happened)  with  the  very  explicit  denunci- 
ation that  he  was  a  blind  leader  of  the  blind, 
it  was  not  imposing  an  intolerable  hardship 
that  they  should  be  required  to  give  se- 
curity for  their  decent  and  orderly  conduct. 


128        The  Congregationalists 

As  for  evangelists  from  abroad,  their  wel- 
come had  been  so  eager  and  so  general, 
that  the  fact  that  one  failed  of  being  in- 
vited by  some  pastor  would  furnish  a  pre- 
sumption against  him  as  an  adventurer  not 
to  be  encouraged  or  entertained. 

Evidently  the  new  gospel  was  bringing 
not  peace  but  a  sword.  In  the  controversy 
that  was  inevitably  springing  up,  two  pro- 
tagonists were  conspicuous.  The  work  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  "Some  Thoughts  con- 
cerning the  present  Revival  of  Religion  in 
New  England"  (Boston,  1742)  was  an- 
swered the  next  year  by  Charles  Chauncy, 
pastor  of  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  in  a 
volume  the  title  of  which  bore  a  purposed 
resemblance  to  that  which  Edwards  had 
used — "  Seasonable  Thoughts  on  the  State 
of  Religion  in  New  England."  It  included 
widely  collected  and  carefully  authenticated 
instances  of  extravagance  and  fanaticism 
in  the  progress  of  the  revival,  with  serious 
warnings    of     impending    danger    to    the 


Great  Awakening  129 

churches.  The  debate  entered  into  the 
conventions  of  ministers  and  into  the  disci- 
pline of  colleges.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
David  Brainerd  was  expelled  from  Yale 
College  for  indulging  himself  in  the  be- 
setting sin  of  the  revivalists,  and  saying  of 
Tutor  Whittelsey  (a  man  of  high  Christian 
character,  afterwards  pastor  of  the  New 
Haven  church)  "  he  has  no  more  grace  than 
this  chair."  The  objectors  to  the  methods 
of  the  "New  Lights"  were  powerfully  re- 
inforced by  the  growing  indiscretions  of 
the  itinerants.  James  Davenport,  pastor  at 
Southold,  Long  Island,  was  one  of  White- 
field's  prime  favorites.  Surrendering  him- 
self to  the  control  of  "impressions"  and 
"impulses"  and  Bible  phrases  "borne  in 
upon  his  mind,"  he  abandoned  his  Long 
Island  parish,  and  went  crusading  through 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  thrusting 
himself  uninvited  into  other  men's  labors, 
charging  those  who  opposed  him  with 
being  "unconverted"  and  with  "leading 


130        The  Congregationalists 

their  people  blindfold  to  hell,"  and  adjuring 
the  people  to  desert  both  pastor  and  church. 
Intent  on  schism,  he  came  by  invitation  to 
New  London  to  aid  in  organizing  a  Sepa- 
ratist church,  and  there  "published  the 
messages  which  he  said  he  received  from 
the  Spirit  in  dreams  and  otherwise"  and 
summoned  the  people  with  a  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord"  to  put  away  the  ob- 
jects of  their  idolatry.  Wigs,  cloaks  and 
breeches,  hoods,  gowns,  rings,  jewels 
and  necklaces,  were  laid  in  a  heap,  on  a 
Sunday  afternoon,  and  publicly  burned, 
with  songs  and  shouts.  In  the  pile  were 
devotional  books  of  such  authors  as  Flavel, 
Beveridge  and  Increase  Mather,  and  it  was 
proclaimed  to  the  crowd  that  "the  smoke 
of  the  torment  of  such  of  the  authors  of  the 
above-said  books  as  died  in  the  same  belief 
as  when  they  set  them  out  was  now  as- 
cending in  hell,  in  like  manner  as  they  saw 
the  smoke  of  these  books  arise."  Such  ex- 
travagances wrought  a  reaction  and  cured 


Great  Awakening  131 

themselves.  In  a  little  more  than  a  year 
from  this  time,  Davenport  himself,  who 
had  been  treated  with  much  forbearance  as 
not  responsible  for  his  actions,  recovered 
his  reason,  with  the  restoration  of  his  bodily 
health,  and  published  a  pathetic  acknowl- 
edgment that  he  had  been  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  spirit  of  delusion  which  he  had 
mistaken  for  the  Spirit  of  truth.  Men  set- 
tled down  into  a  more  sober  mind.  Good 
men  had  been  widely  sundered  in  senti- 
ment; and  yet,  on  reconsideration,  the 
difference  was  not  extreme.  The  most 
zealous  revivalists  admitted  that  there  had 
been  deplorable  excesses;  the  most  cau- 
tious conservatives  recognized  that  benefi- 
cent and  divine  work  had  been  wrought. 
The  hearts  of  alienated  brethren  flowed  to- 
gether, and  soon  no  trace  remained  of  the 
storm  that  had  swept  over  New  England, 
except  a  few  languishing  schisms  in  Con- 
necticut country  towns.  Nevertheless  the 
severe  strain  had  revealed  the  fact  of  diverse 


132        The  Congregationalists 

tendencies  in  opinion  and  taste  and  spiritual 
temperament,  which  were  destined  to  have 
a  most  serious  influence  on  the  course  of 
later  history.  Some  of  the  lessons  taught 
by  the  now  subsided  agitation  were  in- 
structive to  students  of  church  polity.  The 
most  serious  disorders  had  prevailed  in  re- 
gions where  the  semi-Presbyterian  arrange- 
ments of  the  Saybrook  Platform  were 
looked  to  as  a  bulwark  of  good  order. 
And  the  gravest  schism  that  the  Great 
Awakening  occasioned — a  complete  rupture 
between  "Old  Side"  and  "New  Side" 
that  continued  unhealed  for  eighteen  years 
— took  place  under  the  compact  classical 
government  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
In  the  looser  tissue  of  the  Congregational 
communion,  the  wounds  healed  by  the  first 
intention. 


CHAPTER  XI 

GROWTH   OF  DOCTRINE 

In  the  strength  of  the  refreshment  re- 
ceived in  the  few  years  of  the  Great  Awak- 
ening, the  churches  of  New  England  were 
to  subsist  for  more  than  forty  years.  These 
were  to  be  years  not  only  of  reaction  from 
profound  agitation  and  excitement,  but  also 
of  exhausting  wars,  of  political  turmoil, 
and  of  the  influx  of  anti-religious  principles 
from  abroad.  But  for  the  new  and  more 
abundant  life  that  had  been  infused  into 
them,  the  very  existence  of  the  churches 
might  have  been  imperiled  by  these  malign 
influences. 

But  they  were  not  unfruitful  years.  The 
fervid  missionary  zeal  of  David  Brainerd, 
commemorated  in  his  biography  by  Jona- 
than Edwards,  inspired  with  like  zeal 
^33 


134        The  Congregationalists 

Henry  Martyn  and  a  great  company  of  men 
and  women  like-minded,  on  both  sides  of 
the  sea.  The  faithfulness  of  many  a  parish 
church  was  rewarded  by  the  ingathering  of 
Indian  converts.  One  of  these,  Samson 
Occum,  educated  for  the  ministry  by  Pastor 
Wheelock  of  Lebanon,  gathered  in  England 
funds  for  that  school  for  the  training  of 
Indian  preachers  which  grew  into  Dart- 
mouth College.  In  the  twenty  years  from 
1740,  the  number  of  the  New  England 
churches  had  been  increased  by  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty. 

Among  the  fruits  of  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing must  be  reckoned  that  profound  stirring 
of  intellectual  life  that  added  to  the  Amer- 
ican church  polity  which  had  grown  up  on 
the  soil  of  New  England,  a  distinctly  Amer- 
ican school  of  theology.  It  is  most  remark- 
able that  in  more  than  a  hundred  years  of 
strenuous  theologizing,  among  a  people 
greatly  addicted  to  free  thought  and  speech, 
there  should  have  been  so  little  deviation 


Growth  of  Doctrine  135 

from  the  Reformed  theology  as  articulated 
in  the  Westminster  standards.  But  the  re- 
vival had  forced  the  adjudication  of  some 
questions  with  which  these  documents  did 
not  adequately  deal.  The  Half-way  Cove- 
nant and  the  "  Stoddardean "  discipline 
were  illogical  evasions  of  a  difficulty  that 
refused  to  be  thus  disposed  of.  They  were 
an  admission  that  conditions  of  salvation 
were  exacted  with  which  it  was  impossible 
to  comply.  The  case  required  a  new  the- 
odicy to  "justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 
It  was  to  this  that  the  great  founder  of  the 
New  England  theology,  Edwards,  applied 
those  intellectual  powers  which  have  been 
the  admiration  of  the  world  of  thinkers  and 
scholars.  Not  without  mature  meditation 
did  he  apply  in  practice  the  fruits  of  his 
study.  For  nearly  twenty  years  he  prac- 
tised the  system  introduced  into  the  North- 
ampton church  by  his  grandfather.  Not 
until  1748  did  he  deliver  his  soul  of  a  bold 
and  open  protest  against  any  compromise 


136        The  Congregationalists 

of  the  divine  claim  of  repentance  and  faith 
as  the  inexorable  condition  of  acceptance 
with  God.  To  his  mind  and  that  of  his 
successors,  the  solution  of  the  "conflict  of 
ages"  was  to  be  found  in  alleging  the 
"power  of  contrary  choice"  and  the  dis- 
tinction between  natural  and  moral  inabil- 
ity. Nothing  but  a  deep  conviction  of  the 
personal  guilt  of  every  man  who  should 
fail  to  comply  with  the  demands  of  the 
gospel  could  possibly  have  sustained  the 
soul  of  this  most  conscientious  man  in 
those  lurid  and  Dantesque  denunciations  of 
divine  vengeance  against  the  impenitent 
and  unbelieving  with  which  he  terrified  the 
shrieking  listeners  in  his  Enfield  sermon  on 
"Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God." 
The  subject  of  human  duty,  ability  and  re- 
sponsibility cannot  be  followed  far  without 
opening,  at  the  right  hand  and  the  left,  into 
all  the  subjects  of  theological  discussion. 
The  themes  of  Edwards's  own  speculation 
ranged  from  heaven  to  hell.     His  disciples 


Growth  of  Doctrine  137 

and  successors,  a  numerous  series  even 
counting  only  the  most  eminent,  were 
linked  together,  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, not  only  by  the  bond  between  teacher 
and  scholar,  but  to  a  curious  degree  by  the 
ties  of  family  relation.  The  foremost  of 
them,  Hopkins  and  Bellamy,  had  been  stu- 
dents in  tne  family  of  Edwards.  Smalley 
and  Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger  were 
among  the  many  students  with  Bellamy. 
Emmons  studied  under  Smalley.  Timothy 
Dwight  was  grandson  of  Edwards.  Taylor 
was  a  favorite  pupil  of  Dwight.  Park  was 
for  a  time  a  student  of  Emmons.  The 
questions  intently  studied  in  one  generation 
were  taken  up  in  the  next  for  further  elab- 
oration. Thus  grew  up  that  body  of  litera- 
ture known  in  America  as  the  New  England 
theology,  and  known  and  widely  honored 
and  accepted  in  other  lands  as  the  American 
theology. 

Of  course  this  great   intellectual  move- 
ment was  not  accomplished  without  colli- 


138        The  Congregationalists 

sion  of  opposing  minds.  Serious  and  some- 
times acrimonious  debates  took  place.  Not 
many  were  called  to  submit  to  so  painful 
an  experience  as  that  of  the  great  Jonathan 
Edwards.  His  resolute  refusal  to  abate  the 
conditions  which  he  deemed  scriptural  and 
right  in  receiving  candidates  to  the  Lord's 
Supper  provoked  an  angry  hostility  to  him 
in  the  town  to  which  his  more  than  twenty 
years  of  ministry  had  been  so  noble  a  dis- 
tinction and  so  great  a  blessing.  Sorrow- 
fully he  laid  down  his  work  at  the  demand 
of  a  council  ratified  by  an  overwhelming 
vote  of  the  church,  and  with  his  wife  and 
eight  of  his  living  children  withdrew  to  the 
perilous  frontier  of  civilization  in  the  Berk- 
shire hills,  where  he  served  as  missionary  to 
the  Stockbridge  Indians.  In  this  wilderness 
he  wrote  some  of  his  masterpieces  of  meta- 
physical divinity.  After  seven  years  he  was 
invited  to  be  president  of  Princeton  College, 
then  lately  founded  by  New  England  and 
"New  Light"  influence,  in  the  interest  of  a 


Growth  of  Doctrine  139 

more  advanced  theology  and  a  larger  "lib- 
erty of  prophesying  "  than  were  encouraged 
by  the  conservative  orthodoxy  of  Harvard 
and  Yale.  Only  a  few  weeks  after  his  ar- 
rival at  Princeton,  he  entered  the  pest-house 
to  submit  himself  to  inoculation  for  the 
smallpox,  and  there  died  in  1758,  in  his 
fifty-fifth  year. 


CHAPTER  XII 

AGE  OF   HOME   MISSIONS 

At  the  close  of  the  war  of  independence, 
of  all  the  colonial  church  establishments  the 
only  ones  that  survived  in  health  and  vigor 
were  those  of  the  Congregational  polity. 
The  Dutch  and  afterwards  the  English 
church  in  New  York  languished.  Quaker- 
ism, in  the  Jerseys  and  Pennsylvania,  was 
declining.  The  Anglican  establishments 
from  Maryland  southward  were  as  good  as 
dead.  In  New  England  the  solid  organiza- 
tion of  parish  churches  was  coextensive 
with  the  settled  population,  and  was  still 
extending,  as  new  regions  came  to  be  occu- 
pied. In  the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  half, 
there  had  been  changes  in  the  order  of  the 
church  polity.  The  early  idea  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  each  church  by  an  elective  elder- 
140 


Age  of  Home  Missions       141 

ship  of  not  less  than  three  had  shrunk  to  an 
eldership  of  one,  who  was  prone  to  arrogate 
to  himself  autocratic  power.  The  purely 
democratic  government  of  the  towns,  and 
the  powerful  current  of  popular  opinion, 
aided  the  inevitable  reaction  towards  gov- 
ernment directly  by  the  brotherhood  of  the 
church.  The  duties  of  the  fellowship  of 
churches,  though  sometimes  conspicuously 
neglected,  were  so  far  from  being  laid  aside, 
that  they  were  defined  and  regulated  by  a 
growing  body  of  precedents  like  a  common 
law;  or  (in  Connecticut)  by  a  "platform" 
of  ordinances — an  infraction  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  individual  congregation  which 
some  considered  a  less  evil  than  the  "  un- 
chartered freedom  "  that  sometimes  perpetu- 
ated a  diificulty  by  setting  up  council  against 
council.  Successive  controversies  had 
arisen,  resulting  in  some  cases  in  there 
being  two  churches  in  the  same  town  repre- 
senting different  sentiments  or  tastes  ;  but 
it   does   not  appear  that  churches  had  yet 


142        The  Congregationalists 

begun  to  be  established  with  the  distinct 
intent  of  excluding  some  fellow-Christians. 
Doubtless  (and  not  unreasonably)  a  candi- 
date's ''soundness  in  doctrine"  was  in- 
quired into  as  being  one  of  the  indications 
of  his  fitness  for  membership  in  the  church; 
but  it  was  not  with  the  purpose  of  making 
separations  among  Christians,  but  as  one 
way  of  distinguishing  between  the  church 
and  the  world.  If  a  candidate,  departing 
from  what  was  considered  (however  mis- 
takenly) as  essential  and  fundamental  truth, 
should  express  Arminian  opinions,  he  might 
very  probably  be  debarred  from  the  com- 
munion; but  it  would  not  be  with  the  no- 
tion that  he  might  be  an  excellent  Christian, 
only  better  suited  to  some  ** sister  church," 
but  rather  that  a  man  holding  such  views 
was  no  Christian  at  all;  and  that  since  (to 
quote  the  title  of  a  pamphlet  of  the  day) 
"heaven  is  shut  against  Arminians,"  it  is  no 
wrong  if  the  church  on  earth  is  shut  against 
them    too,    until  they  amend  their  sinful 


Age  of  Home  Missions        143 

errors.  In  short,  the  ideal  of  the  New  Eng- 
land churches  (however  imperfectly  real- 
ized) was  to  be  parish  churches,  each  com- 
prehending the  Christian  disciples  of  its 
parish.  In  theory  and  design,  at  least,  they 
were  not  sectarian. 

Here  and  there  was  a  congregation  of 
dissenters  from  the  parish  church.  It  is 
wonderful  how  few  and  inconsiderable  they 
were — chiefly  Quaker,  Baptist  and  Episco- 
palian. The  Separatist  congregations  or- 
ganized during  the  commotion  of  the  Great 
Awakening  presently  adopted  Baptist  prin- 
ciples, or  coalesced  harmoniously  with  the 
sisterhood  of  the  Congregational  churches 
about  them.  Naturally  the  organization  of 
dissent  led  on  both  sides  to  the  emphasizing 
of  mutual  distinctions,  and  to  controversies 
which  did  not  always  do  more  harm  than 
good. 

In  the  extreme  languor  of  the  churches 
that  followed  the  war  of  independence,  they 
were  providentially  laden  with  a  task  of  su- 


144        The  Congregationalists 

preme  importance,  difficulty  and  dignity, 
well  fitted  to  exercise  all  their  remaining 
strength.  The  outward  flow  of  the  New 
England  population  had  already  begun,  be- 
fore the  war,  and  there  had  been  consulta- 
tion among  the  Connecticut  pastors  about 
making  provision  for  the  ''Green  Mountain 
Boys"  who  were  building  their  pioneer 
cabins  in  the  wildernesses  of  Vermont. 
Immediately  on  the  conclusion  of  peace,  the 
business  was  resumed,  the  evangelizing 
tours  of  individual  pastors  being  reinforced 
by  and  by  with  considerable  companies,  in- 
cluding some  of  the  foremost  men  of  the 
Connecticut  clergy,  detailed  to  this  duty  by 
the  General  Association. 

In  the  adjustment  of  territorial  claims 
arising  out  of  the  terms  of  the  colonial 
charters,  there  had  been  allowed  a  Massa- 
chusetts Reserve  in  Western  New  York,  and 
a  Connecticut  Reserve  stretching  across 
Northern  Ohio;  and  towards  these  regions 
the  first  tidal  wave  of  westward  migration 


Age  of  Home  Missions       145 

was  naturally  determined.  It  presently 
grew  to  such  dimensions  that  more  system- 
atic methods  for  more  continuous  work 
were  demanded.  In  1798  was  organized 
the  Missionary  Society  of  Connecticut,  "to 
Christianize  the  heathen  of  North  America, 
and  to  support  and  promote  Christian 
knowledge  in  the  new  settlements  within 
the  United  States."  This  example  was  fol- 
lowed the  next  year  in  Massachusetts,  and 
a  few  years  later  in  New  Hampshire,  Ver- 
mont and  Maine.  The  work  thus  organized 
was  immediately  occasioned  by  the  move- 
ment of  population;  it  was  both  effect  and 
cause  of  that  divine  work  of  spiritual  quick- 
ening at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, which  has  been  characterized  as  The 
Second  Awakening.  Its  influence  extended 
from  the  seaboard  to  the  remotest  frontier 
of  civilization,  '*and  there  was  nothing  hid 
from  the  heat  thereof."  In  the  ruder  re- 
gions of  the  West,  it  was  attended  by  ex- 
travagant symptoms  of  epidemic  nervous 


146        The  Congregatlonalists 

excitement.  In  New  England  the  lessons 
painfully  taught,  two  generations  before,  by 
the  frenzy  of  poor  James  Davenport  and  his 
associates  had  not  been  forgotten.  The 
people  had  well  learned  the  apostolic  dis- 
tinction between  godliness  and  bodily  exer- 
cise. But  everywhere  the  new  revival  was 
like  life  from  the  dead.  At  the  accession  of 
Timothy  D wight,  in  1795,  to  the  presidency 
of  Yale  College,  demoralization  and  infidel- 
ity, in  that  institution,  had  reached  nearly 
its  lowest  limit.  The  college  church  was 
almost  extinct,  and  the  students  generally 
were  ostentatiously  infidel.  As  this  declen- 
sion was  typical  of  the  country  generally,  so 
was  the  recovery  from  it.  There  is  an  im- 
pressive absence  from  the  story,  of  famous 
evangelists  traversing  the  country  on  tours 
of  preaching;  everywhere  men  who  had 
been  "  waiting  for  the  consolation  of  Israel  " 
were  quick  to  answer  to  the  first  signs  of 
new  life.  It  was  wonderful  how  soon  and 
how  completely  the  losses  of  the  church 


Age  of  Home  Missions        147 

were  made  good.  As  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing had  been  marked  by  the  first  American 
venture  in  religious  journalism  (the  "Chris- 
tian History"  of  Thomas  Prince)  so  the 
present  awakening  of  missionary  zeal  gave 
birth  to  the  Connecticut  Evangelical  Maga- 
:(ine  (1800)  and  the  Massachusetts  Mis- 
sionary Magazine  (1802).  The  generous 
enthusiasm  of  religious  activity  was  destined 
to  have  the  most  important  results,  both 
direct  and  indirect,  on  the  future  of  the 
Congregational  churches  of  America. 

The  task  imposed  upon  the  churches  of 
this  period  was  notably  different  from  that 
borne  by  the  former  generations.  It  was  no 
longer  that  of  tending  the  infancy  of  homo- 
geneous communities  on  their  own  soil,  un- 
der the  tutelage  of  their  own  government, 
and  of  seeing  them  equipped  with  the  insti- 
tutions of  a  Christian  civilization.  Their 
brethren  and  neighbors,  embarking  in  their 
canvas-covered  wagons,  had  gone  further 
from  home,  so  far  as  concerned  means  of 


148        The  Congregationalists 

communication,  than  the  fathers  who  had 
crossed  the  sea  to  be  the  founders  of  a  new 
nation.  And  in  their  new  wilderness  they 
were  not  alone.  Another  stream  of  migra- 
tion was  flowing  westward  on  parallel 
lines,  and  often  debouching  into  the  same 
channels  with  that  from  New  England. 
This  was  the  Scotch  or  Irish  Presbyterian 
migration,  so  nearly  similar  to  the  New 
Englanders,  but  not  identical.  These  emi- 
grants also  were  followed  into  the  wilder- 
ness by  the  pastoral  care  of  missionaries  of 
their  own  sort. 

In  these  circumstances  there  were  three 
possible  courses  to  be  taken:  either  one 
party  or  the  other  might  surrender  its  pref- 
erences and  accept  the  regimen  of  the 
other;  or  the  two  parties  might  set  up  rival 
churches  in  the  same  village;  or  some  plan 
might  be  formed  by  which,  in  the  same  com- 
munity, they  might  agree  in  common  wor- 
ship and  Christian  service.  Many  influences 
tended  to  this  last  course.     In  colonial  days. 


Age  of  Home  Missions        149 

there  had  been  systematic  consultation  be- 
tween the  Presbyterian  Church  (then  a  small 
and  uninfluential  body)  and  the  General  As- 
sociation of  Connecticut,  regarding  meas- 
ures to  be  taken  to  ward  otT  the  very  real 
and  formidable  danger  that  a  hierarchy  of 
lord-bishops  backed  by  the  canon  law — a 
yoke  which  neither  they  nor  their  fathers 
had  been  able  to  bear — would  be  imposed 
upon  the  colonies  by  crown  and  parliament. 
After  the  close  of  the  war  of  independence, 
the  General  Assembly  had  gladly  availed 
itself  of  the  eminent  qualifications  of  Dr. 
Dwight  to  secure  a  book  of  psalms  and 
hymns  suited  to  churches  of  both  com- 
munions. To  a  remarkable  extent  their 
clergy  had  been  manned  from  New  Eng- 
land. The  Association  and  the  Assembly 
were  in  the  habit  annually  of  exchanging 
delegates;  and  at  the  Assembly's  request 
these  "  corresponding  members "  were 
given,  in  each  body,  equal  power  with  its 
own  members.     So  it  came  to  pass,  in  1800, 


l^o        The  Congregationalists 

that  Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger,  a  theo- 
logian hardly  inferior  to  his  illustrious  father, 
long  a  Connecticut  pastor,  and  now  presi- 
dent of  Union  College  at  Schenectady,  was 
sitting  in  the  General  Association  of  Con- 
necticut as  delegate  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  He  was  a 
representative  of  both  parties,  or  rather  a 
representative  of  those  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  in  the  West  which  were 
the  common  concern  of  both  parties.  He 
served  on  a  committee  to  prepare  a  "  plan 
of  union"  on  which  mixed  communities 
of  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians 
might  carry  on  their  church  affairs  together 
without  schism.  The  next  year  in  May, 
he  was  chairman  of  a  like  committee 
in  the  General  Assembly.  His  report 
was  adopted;  and  the  next  month  it 
was  also  adopted  in  Connecticut.  This  was 
*'The  Plan  of  Union."  It  provided  that  a 
Presbyterian  church  might  be  served  by  a 
Congregational  minister,  and  vice  versa,  and 


Age  of  Home  Missions       151 

that  a  congregation  including  members  of 
each  persuasion  mighit  conduct  its  affairs  by 
means  of  a  standing  committee.  It  was  a 
studiously  equitable  arrangement,  the  prac- 
tical value  of  which  in  advancing  the  Chris- 
tianization  of  the  new  States  is  denied  by 
none.  It  saved  many  a  community  from 
being  ravaged  by  schism.  It  greatly  honored 
the  essential  principle  of  Congregationalism, 
to  wit,  that  a  community  of  Christians  has 
a  right  to  manage  its  own  affairs  even 
though  it  may  see  fit  to  manage  them  in  the 
Presbyterian  way;  at  the  same  time  it  dis- 
allowed the  Separatist  claim  of  the  right  of 
a  party  to  rend  itself  from  the  community 
when  affairs  are  not  managed  according  to 
its  own  mind.  And  it  largely  infused  the 
spirit  of  self-respect  and  self-government 
into  many  congregations  included  under  the 
Presbyterian  hierarchy,  and  influenced  the 
American  development  of  the  system  itself. 

But  the  practical  working  of  the  Plan  of 
Union  was  to  attach   a  very  large  propor- 


152         The  Congregationalists 

tion,  not  only  of  the  mixed  congregations 
but  of  those  made  up  mainly  from  New 
England,  to  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The 
reasons  for  this  were  not  far  to  seek.  To 
begin  with,  the  Congregationalists  of  that 
day  had  no  aversion  to  the  Presbyterian 
polity.  The  ministers  of  Connecticut,  or- 
ganized on  the  Saybrook  Platform, openly  de- 
clared, and  with  much  justice,  that  their  sys- 
tem was  rather  Presbyterian  than  Congrega- 
tional; and  the  purpose  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  Massachusetts  clergy  to  estab- 
lish a  like  system  there  had  been  averted 
only  by  the  fiery  appeal  of  John  Wise  to 
the  growing  spirit  of  democracy  and  inde- 
pendence. Further,  the  methods  of  the 
Presbyterian  advance,  in  which  the  presby- 
tery is  logically  antecedent  to  the  congrega- 
tion, gave  much  advantage,  in  priority  of 
organization,  over  the  method  which  begins 
with  the  congregation,  leaving  the  wider 
organization  to  follow  at  its  convenience. 
The  missionaries  from  New  England  found 


Age  of  Home  Missions       153 

at  hand  opportunities  of  fraternal  fellowship 
in  the  presbytery,  and  were  often  content 
to  remain  in  it.  Withal,  the  organization 
of  civil  government,  in  the  earlier  West,  on 
the  county  as  a  unit,  instead  of  the  pure 
democracy  of  the  town-meeting,  naturally 
tended  to  the  analogous  organization  of  the 
church.  But  above  all  these  reasons  it 
would  be  unjust  not  to  commemorate  with 
due  honor  the  generous  magnanimity  with 
which  the  pilgrims  of  this  new  exodus, 
pastors  and  people  alike,  consented  to  sacri- 
fice personal  preferences  and  cherished 
usages  and  traditions,  to  the  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  "the  Plan  of 
Union  has  transformed  over  two  thousand 
churches  which  were  in  origin  and  usages 
Congregational,  into  Presbyterian  churches." 
One's  judgment  of  the  policy  that  had  such 
a  result  will  naturally  be  affected  by  his 
point  of  view.  To  the  zealous  propagan- 
dist, eager  to  belong  to  a  big  sect,  it  must 


154        The  Congregationalists 

seem  nothing  less  than  "disastrous" — the 
work  of  "the  Lord's  silly  people."  Others 
will  reckon  it  among  the  highest  honors  of 
a  sect  which  in  many  ways  has  been  nobly 
distinguished  in  the  service  of  the  Church 
Catholic,  that  it  was  capable  of  so  heroic  an 
act  of  self-abnegation.  There  are  some 
competitions  in  which  the  honors  and  the 
ultimate  rewards  of  victory  belong  to  the 
defeated  party. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

DISRUPTION 

Simultaneously  with  these  widely  exten- 
sive labors  of  the  Congregationalists  outside 
of  New  England,  revolutionary  agitations 
and  changes  were  taking  place  among  the 
churches  in  the  most  ancient  seats  of  our 
Puritan  and  Pilgrim  Christianity.  And  the 
immediate  occasion  of  these  agitations  was 
found  in  that  same  revival  of  religion  which 
had  inspired  the  apostolic  self-denial  and 
the  earnest  missionary  zeal  manifested  in 
the  pioneer  work  at  the  West.  The  diver- 
gent tendencies  that  had  revealed  themselves 
during  and  after  the  Great  Awakening,  in  the 
controversy  in  which  Jonathan  Edwards  and 
Charles  Chauncy  were  the  protagonists,  re- 
appeared with  emphasis.  They  represented 
the  difference  of  temperament  and  taste  be- 
155 


156        The  Congregationalists 

tween  the  more  eager  and  zealous,  and  the 
more  sober  and  critical  but  not  necessarily 
less  earnest.  They  represented  a  difference 
of  judgment  in  church  administration,  es- 
pecially on  the  much  debated  point  of  the 
conditions  of  admission  to  the  Christian 
sacraments.  Naturally  also  they  represented 
a  widening  difference  of  theological  con- 
viction. The  "  Improvements  in  Theology 
made  by  President  Edwards  "  and  enforced 
by  his  powerful  reasoning  and  his  lofty 
character  had  been  by  no  means  unani- 
mously accepted  by  the  New  England  pas- 
tors. And  now  that  remarkable  dynasty  of 
theologians  who  (as  his  son  phrased  it)  had 
**  followed  his  course  of  thought,"  had  gone 
on  to  the  third  generation,  adding  new 
principles,  and  making  new  refinements 
and  wider  applications.  Identifying  them- 
selves with  earnest  movements  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  religion  at  home  or  afar,  and 
much  engaged  in  the  training  of  students 
for  the  ministry,  the  leaders  of  the  new  the- 


Disruption  157 

ology  soon  became  conscious  of  a  growing 
influence  that  might  easily  seem  to  war- 
rant a  tone  of  authority  natural  enough,  but 
not  conciliatory  to  the  slower-moving  and 
more  cautious  minds  that  held  to  the  early 
forms  of  theological  statement.  There  was 
nothing  like  schism  either  in  or  among  the 
churches.  But  the  two  schools  of  opinion 
known  as  Old  Calvinist  and  Hopkinsian 
were  drawing  apart  from  each  other,  and  a 
dividing  line  might  presently  have  been 
drawn  between  them,  but  for  the  emerging 
into  plain  view  of  another  element  in  the 
life  of  the  Congregational  churches,  which 
was  destined,  both  by  action  and  by  reac- 
tion, to  exert  a  profound  and  even  revolu- 
tionary influence  on  Congregationalism. 

In  the  year  1787,  the  old  Episcopalian 
church  of  King's  Chapel  in  Boston  declared  it- 
self Unitarian,  amended  its  prayer-book  ac- 
cordingly and  inducted  into  its  ministry 
James  Freeman,  a  man  of  avowed  Unitarian 
principles.     Thus    "the  first  Episcopalian 


158        The  Congregationalists 

church  in  New  England  became  the  first  Uni- 
tarian church  in  America."  It  compelled  at- 
tention to  a  fact  which  for  many  years  had 
been  no  secret  from  any  who  chose  to  observe 
it,  that  throughout  this  part  of  New  England 
there  was  a  deep  and  frankly  uttered  dis- 
sent, not  only  from  the  extreme  statements 
of  the  later  Hopkinsians,  but  from  the  gen- 
eral system  of  doctrine  which,  as  set  forth  in 
the  Westminster  standards,  had  not  indeed 
been  imposed  as  a  test,  but  in  repeated  dec- 
larations of  earlier  date  had  been  referred  to 
as  expressing  the  common  belief  of  the 
churches.  Among  the  dissidents  were  two 
eminent  men  who  died  in  that  same  year 
1787  which  witnessed  the  ordination  of 
Freeman  at  King's  Chapel  :  one  was  Ebe- 
nezer  Gay,  for  nearly  seventy  years  pastor 
at  Hingham ;  the  other  was  Charles  Chauncy, 
the  antagonist  of  Edwards  on  the  subject  of 
the  Revival,  who  for  sixty  years  was  pastor 
of  the  First  Church  in  Boston.  Much 
younger  than   either   of  these,  though  his 


Disruption  159 

brief  and  brilliant  career  closed  more  than 
twenty  years  earlier,  was  Jonathan  May- 
hew,  of  the  West  Church  in  Boston,  distin- 
guished not  only  for  his  captivating  elo- 
quence, but  for  the  large  latitude  of  his  the- 
ological opinions  and  his  aggressive  and 
defiant  way  of  enunciating  them.  A  fourth 
name  to  be  added  is  that  of  Jeremy  Belknap. 
In  that  same  notable  year,  1787,  he  came 
from  Dover,  New  Hampshire,  where  he  had 
been  for  twenty  years  pastor,  to  be  the  first 
Congregational  minister  of  the  Federal 
Street  Church,  which  up  to  that  date  had 
been  Presbyterian.  His  theological  position 
was  defined  by  his  publishing  a  hymn-book 
from  which  all  recognition  of  the  Trinity  or 
the  supreme  deity  of  Christ  had  been  elimi- 
nated. 

The  thing  chiefly  remarkable  in  the  theo- 
logical situation  illustrated  in  these  conspic- 
uous instances  is  not  the  fact  of  a  some- 
what prevalent  departure  from  the  standards 
of  a  previous  generation.     The  like  depar- 


l6o        The  Congregationalists 

ture  is  characteristic  of  the  time  both  in  the 
Old  England  and  in  the  New.  The  wonder 
is  that  in  an  age  of  strenuous  theological 
disputation  it  should  have  excited  so  little 
debate,  and  led  to  no  rupture  of  fellowship. 
It  certainly  was  not  unnoticed.  The  men 
who  have  been  named  were  of  the  highest 
eminence,  and  in  eminent  positions;  and 
their  opinions  were  distinctly  understood. 
But,  not  without  mutual  anxieties  and  jeal- 
ousies, the  various  parties  kept  together  in 
one  fellowship  of  churches  and  ministers, 
in  which  relations  of  sincere  respect  and 
warm  personal  friendship  stretched  across 
the  theological  dividing  lines. 

But  schism  was  inevitable.  It  is  not  alto- 
gether strange  that  the  first  church  to  go 
asunder  was  the  old  Pilgrim  church  at  Ply- 
mouth. When  the  church  by  a  majority 
and  the  parish  by  an  overwhelming  vote  had 
determined  on  the  settlement  of  a  minister 
of  "liberal"  sympathies,  it  was  wholly  in 
accordance  with  the  Separatist  traditions  of 


Disruption  l6l 

Plymouth  that  the  dissatisfied  minority, 
numbering  ahnost  one-half  of  the  commu- 
nicant members,  should  secede  "without 
tarrying  for  any."  This  they  did,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1801,  setting  up  at  the  entrance  of  the 
new  church  a  dogmatic  test  intended  to  ex- 
clude Unitarians.  The  old  church  remained 
on  the  basis  of  the  original  church  cov- 
enant. 

This  was  a  preliminary  and  local  skirmish. 
The  tug  of  war  began  two  years  later,  when 
the  chair  of  theology  in  Harvard  College  fell 
vacant  by  the  death  of  Professor  Tappan. 
On  the  choice  of  his  successor  the  parties 
joined  issue.  The  corporation  was  equally 
divided,  and  the  question  hung  long  in  the 
balance.  At  last  the  balance  turned  in  favor 
of  the  ''Liberal"  candidate,  the  greatly  re- 
spected Henry  Ware,  pastor  at  Hingham. 
This  election,  and  three  others  of  like  com- 
plexion which  soon  followed,  announced 
unmistakably  to  the  two  ''evangelical" 
parties  that  the  influence  of  the  college  was 


i62        The  Congregationalists 

thenceforth  committed  to  the  opposite  side. 
It  was  a  painful  and  disheartening  blow  to 
those  who  cherished  the  doctrinal  traditions 
of  the  New  England  churches.  But  there 
were  severer  blows  to  follow. 

The  immediate  consequence  of  seating 
the  Unitarian  candidate  in  the  chair  of  the- 
ology at  Harvard  (it  took  place  in  1805)  was 
the  founding  of  Andover  Theological  Semi- 
nary. With  wonderful  promptness  the  two 
"  evangelical "  parties,  the  Old  Calvinist  and 
the  Hopkinsian,  composed  their  serious  dif- 
ferences and  united  their  resources,  and  in 
September,  1808,  the  new  Seminary,  the 
first  in  Protestant  America,  was  opened, 
with  thirty-six  students.  For  thirty  years 
from  that  time,  the  annual  average  of  enter- 
ing students  was  sixty-two.  The  Seminary 
was  the  mighty  pioneer  in  that  work  of  the 
systematic  and  thorough  training  for  the 
ministry  in  which,  both  in  their  own  semi- 
naries and  by  the  service  of  their  sons  in  the 
seminaries  of  other  sects,  the  American  Con- 


Disruption  163 

gregationalists  have  held  an  unquestioned 
preeminence. 

The  two  antagonist  parties  were  now 
strongly  intrenched  at  Cambridge  and  An- 
dover.  Each  had  its  monthly  organ  pub- 
lished in  Boston,  the  Liberal  Anthology  and 
the  Orthodox  Panoplist.  Each  was  eagerly 
desirous  to  place  its  best  men  in  positions 
of  influence.  The  accession  to  the  Liberal 
pulpit  of  Boston  of  two  such  splendidly 
gifted  youths  as  Channing  at  Federal  Street 
and  Buckminster  at  the  Brattle  Church  was 
inadequately  offset  by  the  settlement  of 
Joshua  Huntington  at  "  the  Old  South  "  and 
of  the  demonstratively  and  aggressively  or- 
thodox John  Codman  at  the  Second  Church 
in  Dorchester.  It  was  on  the  occasion  of 
his  settlement  that  Mr.  Codman  announced 
his  purpose  to  draw  a  line  of  distinction  in 
matters  of  professional  courtesy  among  his 
neighbors  of  the  opposing  schools  of  opin- 
ion— an  announcement  which  came  near  to 
costing    him   his   place.     But  at  this  date 


164        The  Congregationalists 

(1808)  so  far  were  the  parties  from  a  rupture 
of  fellowship,  that  at  the  installation  of 
Huntington  the  protagonists,  Morse  and 
Channing,  took  part  together  in  the  public 
services,  and  at  the  installation  of  Codman 
Channing  preached  the  sermon. 

But  it  was  impossible  that  the  form  of 
fellowship  could  long  continue.  The  ten- 
sion was  such  that  so  small  a  matter  as  a 
pamphlet  could  start  a  rent  that  should  run 
through  the  entire  fabric.  Dr.  Jedediah 
Morse  of  Charlestown  supplied  the  pam- 
phlet, under  the  title:  ''American  Unita- 
rianism;  or  A  Brief  History  of  the  Progress 
and  Present  State  of  the  Unitarian  Churches 
in  America."  It  consisted  of  extracts  from 
letters  from  Mr.  Freeman  of  King's  Chapel 
that  had  been  published  in  England  in  a 
"Life  of  the  Rev.  Theophilus  Lindsey,"  a 
deceased  Unitarian  minister  in  London. 
The  three  points  of  offense  in  the  pamphlet 
(for  it  was  meant  to  be  offensive)  were 
these:  that  it  gave  the  impression,  (i),  that 


Disruption  165 

there  had  been  a  covert  conspiracy  to  draw 
away  the  New  England  churches  from  their 
faith;  (2),  that  the  leaders  of  New  England 
Liberalism  had  been  guilty  of  dishonest 
evasion  and  concealment  of  their  principles; 
(3),  that  they  were  in  sympathy  with  the 
highly  unpopular  theological  tenets  of  the 
Rev.  Joseph  Priestley,  leader  of  the  English 
Socinians.  The  imputations  were  all  of 
them  unjust  and  outrageous.  But  they 
answered  their  purpose  of  infusing  addi- 
tional acrimony  into  a  controversy  that 
needed  no  such  intensifying.  The  war  of 
journals,  pamphlets  and  books  waxed  hot- 
ter and  hotter. 

And  now  the  schism  went  on  apace.  As 
in  the  days  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat, 
the  cry  was,  "To  your  tents,  O  Israel." 
At  least,  this  was  the  cry  of  the  Orthodox 
party,  who  were  bent  on  forcing  the  fight. 
The  time  had  arrived  which  Increase  Mather 
foresaw  and  deprecated,  when  men  would 
seek  to  "gather  churches  out  of  churches." 


i66        The  Congregationalists 

In  cases  where  the  church,  being  Orthodox, 
found  itself  sustained  by  a  majority,  how- 
ever scanty,  of  the  parish,  no  question  need 
be  raised.  When  the  Orthodox  church 
found  itself  opposed  by  the  Liberal  parish, 
it  was  advised  to  insist  on  its  right  of  initi- 
ative in  the  choice  of  a  pastor,  or  (fatal 
counsel,  as  it  proved!)  to  separate  from 
the  parish  and  organize  a  new  "  ecclesias- 
tical society  "  for  the  care  of  its  temporali- 
ties. The  case  of  a  Liberal  church  with  an 
Orthodox  parish  does  not  seem  to  have  oc- 
curred. In  case  of  a  parish  asserting  its 
Liberal  sympathies  with  the  consent  or  ac- 
quiescence of  the  church,  persons  of  Ortho- 
dox convictions  were  strenuously  urged  to 
"  come  out  of  Babylon  "  and  connect  them- 
selves with  some  distinctly  Orthodox  church 
— a  counsel  by  no  means  universally  fol- 
lowed. 

For  twenty  years  the  schism  went  on 
rending  and  tearing,  disturbing  the  peace 
of  towns,  churches  and  families.     A  nota- 


Disruption  167 

ble  and  in  some  respects  exceptional  in- 
stance is  that  of  Dedham,  which  gave  occa- 
sion for  "the  Dedham  decision  "  found  in 
volume  xvi  of  the  Massachusetts  Reports. 
In  1 818,  'Mn  that  town,  the  majority  of  the 
church  members  being  Evangelical,  the  so- 
ciety, /.  e.,  the  legal  voters  of  the  First  Par- 
ish of  Dedham,  who  were  preponderatingly 
Unitarian,  took  the  initiative  and,  in  spite 
of  the  protests  of  two-thirds  of  the  church, 
called  the  Rev.  Alvan  Lamson  as  their  minis- 
ter, and  invited  a  council  of  Unitarians  to 
ordain  him."  The  council,  which  included 
some  of  the  foremost  men  of  the  Unitarian 
clergy  and  laity,  consented  to  take  this 
course,  so  utterly  without  justification  in 
either  principle  or  usage.  The  church  now 
withdrew  from  the  residuary  minority  that 
adhered  to  the  parish.  Hereupon  arose  the 
legal  question,  which  part  of  the  now  di- 
vided church  was  the  First  Church  in  Ded- 
ham. The  case  being  carried  to  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  State,  it  was  decided 


i68        The  Congregationalists 

that  the  parish  church  is  the  church  that  is 
connected  with  the  parish — that  the  State 
recognizes  no  church  as  having  any  legal 
status  except  in  connection  with  some  regu- 
larly constituted  society — that  if  the  entire 
church  should  withdraw,  it  would  thereby 
lose  its  existence,  and  a  church  which  might 
afterwards  be  organized  in  the  parish  would 
succeed  to  the  name  and  property  of  the 
seceded  church. 

"  The  Dedham  decision  "  had  a  sweeping 
application.  According  to  a  reckoning 
afterwards  made  from  the  Orthodox  point 
of  view,  forty-six  churches  were  ''driven 
from  their  houses  of  worship  by  town  or 
parish  votes  or  by  measures  equivalent  to 
such  votes"  while  thirty-five  others  had 
been  "constrained  in  conscience  to  secede 
as  individuals  and  form  distinct  churches." 
On  the  other  hand  not  less  than  thirty-nine 
churches  including  some  of  the  most  vener- 
able and  influential,  while  protesting  against 
the    separation  that  was  forced  for  con- 


Disruption  169 

science'  sake  by  the  Orthodox  part3%  freely 
took  their  position  on  the  Liberal  side.  In 
Boston  one  only  of  the  old  churches,  the 
"Old  South,"  remained  to  the  Orthodox 
party,  so  complete  had  been  the  change. 
Boston  ''awoke  and  found  itself  Arian." 
From  this  point  forwards  the  Story  of  the 
Congregationalists  is  divided  into  two 
streams. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

UNITARIANISM 

Never  in  all  the  course  of  church  history 
has  a  new  religious  movement  started  with 
so  magnificent  a  send-off  as  this  of  the 
Boston  Unitarians.  Granting  the  strength 
of  its  theological  position,  no  element  of 
strength  beside  seemed  lacking  to  it.  It 
numbered  125  churches,  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  which  were  in  the  region  of  Boston. 
Nine  out  of  the  ten  churches  of  Boston  ad- 
hered to  it.  Of  the  twenty-five  first 
churches  founded  in  Massachusetts,  about 
twenty,  beginning  with  the  Pilgrim  church 
of  Plymouth,  were  Unitarian.  The  vener- 
able College  at  Cambridge  was  under  its 
control.  Church  buildings  and  productive 
funds  for  religious  uses  amounting,  it  was 
estimated,  to  $600,000  were  in  its  posses- 
170 


Unitarianism  171 

sion.  The  wealth,  culture  and  social  influ- 
ence of  Boston  were  Unitarian.  The  great 
offices  of  the  State  were  held  by  Unitarians. 
The  Unitarian  clergy-list  was  such  a  roster 
of  splendid  names  as  no  clergy  of  like 
numbers  in  Christendom  could  show. 
Neither  were  its  graces  those  alone  of  learn- 
ing and  rhetoric,  although  in  these  it  was 
greatly  distinguished  ;  the  more  spiritual 
graces  of  charity  towards  man  and  piety 
towards  God  were,  in  many  a  beautiful 
instance,  illustrated  in  saintly  lives.  There 
was  much  to  justify  the  prophecy  that  was 
uttered,  that  Unitarianism  would  presently 
become  the  prevailing  form  of  American 
Christianity. 

The  theology  represented  by  Channing 
and  his  friends  was  a  lofty  and  reverent 
Arianism.  Its  methods  were  scrupulously 
biblical  ;  indeed  as  compared  with  their 
antagonists,  it  might  not  be  unjust  to  say 
that  they  were  the  more  biblist  of  the  two, 
and  the  latter  the  more  rationalist.     The 


172        The  Congregationalists 

strength — and  the  weakness — of  the  new 
movement  lay  not  so  much  in  its  theology 
(using  the  word  strictly)  as  in  its  anthro- 
pology. Its  reaction  from  commonly  ac- 
cepted forms  of  statement  as  to  human 
depravity  and  impotence  was  violent.  The 
command  "honor  all  men"  was  obeyed 
from  the  heart.  If  its  preachers  were  led 
thereby  to  adopt  a  weak  tenet  of  "the 
rectitude  of  human  nature,"  they  suffered 
the  consequence  of  a  loss  of  grip  on  the 
average  conscience,  and  the  substitution  of 
culture  for  conversion. 

The  Unitarians  were  charged  with  having 
departed  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Fathers 
of  New  England.  It  was  true.  So,  in  a 
less  degree  and  by  more  gradual  deflections, 
had  their  accusers.  But  to  claim  that  they 
had  ceased  to  be  Congregationalists  was 
(and  is)  preposterous.  The  old  churches 
of  Boston  and  the  neighborhood,  in  their 
old  meeting-houses,  under  their  regularly 
settled,  recognized  and  approved   pastors, 


Unitarianism  173 

without  change  of  rule  or  organization, 
were  going  forward  without  other  interrup- 
tion than  that  some  of  their  members  had 
voluntarily  withdrawn.  The  departure 
from  Congregational  principles  was  not 
when  the  Unitarians,  to  their  regret,  were 
left  by  themselves  in  the  old  churches;  but 
when  the  retiring  members  organized  them- 
selves into  distinctively  and  exclusively 
partisan  churches,  sometimes  under  ex- 
pressly sectarian  names,  as  "  Calvinistic" 
or  ''Trinitarian,"  with  tests  intended  to  de- 
bar their  late  fellow-members  from  fellow- 
ship. 

In  logic  and  in  conscience  the  residuary 
parish  church,  holding  the  name  and  the 
privilege  and  the  prestige  of  the  old  town- 
church,  and  its  meeting-house,  and  its 
funds  for  the  maintenance  of  the  minister, 
ought  to  have  assumed  the  duties  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  parish  church,  holding 
itself  "  debtor  to  every  man  "  in  the  parish, 
except  as  some  persons  had  discharged  it 


174        The  Congregationalists 

of  the  debt  by  committing  themselves  to 
other  spiritual  care.  It  was  an  immense 
opportunity  that  lay  before  these  churches 
at  the  critical  time  when  immigration  was 
just  beginning  and  the  change  from  rural  to 
village  and  city  life  was  impending.  It 
does  not  appear  that  they  ever  apprehended 
the  duties  involved  in  the  privileges  so  lav- 
ishly bestowed  on  them.  Perhaps  no 
churches  have  shown  less  sense  of  responsi- 
bility for  the  population  of  a  given  precinct, 
than  these  old  parish  churches.  That  there 
were  nobly  generous  men  among  them,  and 
men  possessed  of  an  **  enthusiasm  of  hu- 
manity," is  abundantly  demonstrated,  as  by 
the  "ministry  at  large"  founded  by  Dr. 
Tuckerman,  and  other  good  works.  But  in 
general  these  churches,  both  in  city  and  in 
country,  were  inactive  and  unenterprising. 

Without  attempting  to  determine  in  what 
degree  this  fault  is  to  be  referred  to  defects 
of  theology,  it  is  easy  to  recognize  in  it  the 
debilitating  effect  of  the  initial  successes. 


Unitarianism  175 

The  new  sect  (for  such,  by  no  consent  of 
its  own,  it  had  come  to  be)  had  won  two 
Pyrrhic  victories:  it  had  taken  control  of 
Harvard  College;  and  it  had  come  into  pos- 
session, by  a  judicial  decision  that  filled  the 
"exiled"  churches  with  an  undying  sense 
of  injustice,  of  names  and  records  and 
church-buildings  and  funds,  that  kept  them 
very  much  "at  ease  in  Zion."  The  move- 
ment was  strangely  sterile.  It  started  in 
181 5  with  125  churches,  of  which  100  were 
in  Massachusetts.  Thirty-three  years  later 
it  numbered  201 ;  and  fifteen  years  after  that 
it  numbered  205.  In  the  last  forty  years, 
more  earnest  efforts  at  the  propagation  of  the 
sect  have  not  been  without  result. 

The  real  fruits  of  the  Unitarian  movement 
do  not  admit  of  tabulation,  and  they  are 
very  far  from  insignificant.  The  fact,  in- 
deed, that  the  list  of  eminent  names  in 
American  literature  is  so  largely  a  catalogue 
of  Unitarians  cannot  be  confidently  alleged 
as  a  fruit  of  the  "  ism."     But  the  narrowest 


176        The  Congregationalists 

sectarian  prejudice  against  this  order  of  the 
Congregational  churches  need  not  hesitate 
to  recognize,  not  only  the  noble  contribu- 
tions which  it  has  made  to  great  social  re- 
forms, but  also  the  salutary  degree  in  which 
the  principles  and  temper  of  Unitarian  Chris- 
tianity have  pervaded  the  literature  and  even 
the  theology  of  the  American  church  in 
general,  including  those  parts  of  it  which 
are  least  conscious  of  any  such  influence. 

Within  the  prescribed  limits  of  this  vol- 
ume, the  history  of  this  separation — the 
secession  of  the  Orthodox  from  the  Unita- 
rians— can  be  told  only  with  the  utmost 
brevity.  Two  incidents  however  demand 
mention.  The  first  was  the  rise  of  the 
Transcendentalists.  They  represented  the 
reaction,  in  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men, 
from  that  sensational  philosophy  of  Locke 
and  his  Scotch  successors  which  had  so 
long  been  exclusively  dominant  in  Amer- 
ica. Its  first  recognized  entrance  into  church 
affairs  was  when,  in  1832,  the  young  pastor 


Unitarianism  177 

of  the  Second  Church  in  Boston,  Mr.  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  startled  his  congregation 
by  proposing  to  abandon  the  observance  of 
the  Lord's  Supper.  He  did  not  find  it  in- 
teresting, he  said.  When  the  church  de- 
murred at  this  modest  demand,  he  retired  to 
his  literary  seclusion  at  Concord,  not,  how- 
ever, without  treating  his  congregation,  at 
parting,  with  an  elaborate  argument  against 
its  use  of  the  sacrament.  The  old-style 
"Channing  Unitarians,"  always  reverent 
towards  the  Scriptures  and  the  person  of 
Christ,  found  much  to  offend  them  in  the 
oracles  with  which  the  young  philosopher 
emerged  each  autumn  upon  the  lecture-plat- 
form. And  when,  in  1838,  he  delivered  his 
address  to  the  Graduating  Class  of  the  Har- 
vard Divinity  School,  they  were  more  than 
offended,  they  were  shocked,  at  what 
seemed  to  them  nothing  better  than  panthe- 
ism. It  was  "atheism  disguising  itself 
under  a  preposterous  name,"  said  one. 
Prof.    Andrews    Norton,    eminent    for  his 


lyS        The  Congregationalists 

learning  in  the  Scriptures  and  his  defense  of 
their  authority,  denounced  the  new  teaching 
as  "  the  latest  form  of  infidelity,"  and  Prof. 
Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  felt  constrained  in 
spirit  to  preach,  in  reply,  in  the  college 
chapel,  a  sermon  which  he  sent  to  Mr. 
Emerson  with  a  friendly  letter,  and  received 
in  return  an  exasperatingly  flippant  answer. 
The  war  of  pamphlets  thus  joined  was 
still  raging  when  a  new  combatant  entered 
the  field.  Theodore  Parker,  in  an  ordination 
sermon  preached  in  1841,  on  "The  Tran- 
sient and  Permanent  in  Christianity,"  boldly 
challenged,  in  the  startling  and  defiant  way 
in  which  he  delighted,  that  whole  system  of 
the  defense  of  the  gospel  from  history  and 
miracle  on  which  Channing  and  his  asso- 
ciates had  been  accustomed  to  rely.  "The 
foundations  were  destroyed,  and  what 
should  the  righteous  do  f "  Something 
must  needs  be  done;  and  yet  process  for 
heresy  was  hardly  suited  to  the  antecedents 
of  Unitarianism.     But  practically,  by  general 


Unitarian  ism  179 

consent,  Parker  found  himself  outside  of  the 
fellowship  of  the  Unitarian  ministry. 
Parker  was  not  the  man  to  shrink  from  the 
controversy  thus  invited.  His  position  was 
reasserted  with  emphasis  in  his  volume 
(1842)  of  "Discourse  of  Matters  Pertaining 
to  Religion;"  and  in  his  translation  of  De 
Wette's  "Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment" the  most  alarming  results  of  German 
criticism  were  commended  not  only  to  the 
learned  but  to  the  popular  mind.  Instead  of 
his  country  pulpit  in  Roxbury,  he  mounted 
the  platform  of  the  largest  concert-hall  in 
Boston,  and  became  the  most  popular 
preacher  in  the  city,  while  all  over  the  land 
he  was  heard  as  a  lyceum  lecturer.  It  is  an 
impressive  illustration  of  the  swift  current 
of  modern  thought,  that  many  of  the  opin- 
ions for  which  Parker  was  disfellowshipped 
as  a  heretic  by  the  Unitarians  in  1844,  came, 
before  the  end  of  the  century,  to  be  dis- 
cussed as  open  questions  among  theologians 


i8o        The  Congregationalists 

of  unquestioned  standing  in  orthodox  com- 
munions. 

When,  after  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  the 
Unitarians  began  to  get  together  for  an 
aggressive  campaign,  it  became  obvious 
that  among  the  newer  churches  organized 
by  new  men,  many  of  them  recruited  from 
other  denominations  and  reacting  violently 
from  their  former  principles,  the  tide  was 
setting  vehemently  towards  an  extreme 
radicalism.  "The  Western  Issue"  drawn 
between  those  who  insisted  on  holding  to 
the  name  of  Christian,  and  those  who 
wished  to  reject  it  in  favor  of  some  state- 
ment of  "absolute  religion,"  was  so  sharp 
that  it  would  have  split  the  denomination  if 
this  had  been  big  enough  to  split.  It  was 
finally  settled  by  the  unanimous  adoption, 
at  the  National  Conference  in  1894,  of  this 
declaration : 

"These  churches  accept  the  religion  of 
Jesus,  holding,  in  accordance  with  his 
teaching,  that  practical  religion  is  summed 


Unitarianism  181 

up  in  love  to  God  and  love  to  man. 
The  Conference  recognizes  the  fact  that  its 
constituency  is  Congregational  in  tradition 
and  polity.  Therefore  it  declares  that  noth- 
ing in  this  constitution  is  to  be  construed  as 
an  authoritative  test;  and  we  cordially  in- 
vite to  our  working  fellowship  any  who, 
while  differing  from  us  in  belief,  are  in  gen- 
eral sympathy  with  our  spirit  and  our  prac- 
tical aims." 


CHAPTER  XV 

AFTER   THE   DISRUPTION 

After  the  disruption  of  the  two  parties  of 
the  New  England  Congregationalists,  in  the 
first  two  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
as  soon  as  the  smoke  and  dust  of  a  most 
acrimonious  controversy  were  a  little  blown 
away,  it  was  for  the  Orthodox  seceders  at 
Boston  to  look  about  them  and  reckon  up 
their  losses.  There  was  cause  for  both 
dismay  and  congratulation.  Immediately 
about  them  the  ruin  was  almost  complete. 
The  college  was  gone;  and  nearly  all  the 
old  churches,  with  their  venerable  name  and 
history,  and  their  buildings  and  funds  and 
legal  privileges.  Young  Harriet  Beecher 
(name  afterwards  illustrious)  coming  to 
Boston  with  her  father  in  1826,  afterwards 
182 


After  the  Disruption  183 

wrote  her  impressions  of  the  situation  in 
these  words:  "All  the  literary  men  of 
Massachusetts  were  Unitarian.  All  the 
trustees  and  professors  of  Harvard  College 
were  Unitarians.  All  the  elite  of  wealth 
and  fashion  crowded  Unitarian  churches. 
The  judges  on  the  bench  were  Unitarian, 
giving  decisions  by  which  the  peculiar 
features  of  church  organization,  so  care- 
fully ordained  by  the  Pilgrim  fathers,  had 
been  nullified.  .  .  .  The  dominant  ma- 
jority entered  at  once  into  possession  of 
churches  and  church  property,  leaving  the 
orthodox  minority  to  go  out  into  school- 
houses  or  town  halls,  and  build  their 
churches  as  best  they  could." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  area  of  the 
Unitarian  movement  was  singularly  lim- 
ited. One  of  its  own  historians  (Professor 
Allen)  has  thus  defined  it:  '*A  radius  of 
thirty-five  miles  from  Boston  as  a  centre 
would  sweep  almost  the  whole  field  of  its 
history    and    influence.     Outside    of    this, 


184        The  Congregationalists 

twelve  or  fifteen  churches  lay  in  a  belt  a 
little  to  the  north,  running  as  far  back  as  to 
the  Connecticut  River;  while  the  important 
towns  of  Portland,  Portsmouth,  Worcester, 
Providence,  and  New  Bedford  made  its 
frontier  stations.  Baltimore  and  Charleston 
were  distant  outposts,  established  in  1817; 
New  York  and  Springfield  were  added  to 
the  list  in  this  very  year." 

The  rest  of  New  England  was  hardly 
affected,  except  indirectly,  by  the  contro- 
versy which  had  so  convulsed  the  region  of 
Boston.  Everywhere  else  the  churches 
stood  true  to  the  doctrinal  system  which, 
not  without  modifications  in  transmission, 
they  had  inherited  from  the  fathers— more 
staunchly  true,  in  fact,  for  the  questions 
that  had  been  debated.  In  Connecticut, 
the  almost  total  failure  of  Unitarianism  to 
make  any  lasting  impression  may  be 
ascribed  in  part  to  the  "  consociation"  sys- 
tem with  its  conservative  influence;  but 
quite  as  much  to  the  fact  that  its  orthodoxy 


After  the  Disruption  185 

was  represented  by  the  recognized  leader- 
ship, not  of  extreme  dogmatists  of  the 
somewhat  domineering  Hopkinsian  dy- 
nasty, but  by  so  commanding  a  personality 
and  so  genuinely  liberal  a  teacher  as  Presi- 
dent Dwight  of  Yale  College.  In  the  loss 
of  Harvard,  the  Orthodox  party  found 
consolation  in  the  growing  influence  of 
Yale,  and  in  the  younger  institutions  of 
Dartmouth  (1769),  Williams  (1793),  Bowdoin 
(1794),  and  Middlebury  (1800),  while  Am- 
herst was  about  to  begin,  in  1821,  its  dis- 
tinguished and  eminently  evangelical  career. 
But  especially  reassuring  was  the  effective 
work  of  Andover  Theological  Seminary 
(1808)  sending  out  each  year  fifty  or  sixty 
recruits  for  the  evangelical  ministry  so 
trained  and  equipped  for  their  work  as 
never  young  ministers  had  been  before 
since  the  apostolic  era.  The  noble  success 
of  this  foundation  inspired  men  to  the 
imitation  of  it  at  Bangor  (1816)  and  at  New 
Haven    (1822).     Meanwhile    Harvard   was 


i86        The  Congregationalists 

languishing,  not  only  in  its  theological 
work,  but  in  all  its  work,  through  a  wide- 
spread mistrust  as  to  its  religious  in- 
fluence. 

While  the  Unitarian  Congregationalists 
succeeded,  in  Boston  and  its  neighborhood, 
to  the  property  and  prestige  and  easy  dig- 
nity of  the  establishment,  their  Orthodox 
brethren  had  settled  into  the  attitude  of  a 
dissenting  sect,  with  the  good  qualities  in- 
cidental to  such  organizations,  and  *'the 
faults  of  its  qualities."  With  conscientious 
zeal,  as  serving  the  Lord,  they  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  work  of  "gathering  churches 
out  of  churches,"  to  eager  polemic  attacks 
upon  the  opposite  party,  and  to  the  organi- 
zation of  a  propaganda  for  the  principles 
which  they  sincerely  identified  with  the  in- 
terests of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

The  acceptance  of  this  attitude,  necessi- 
tated, perhaps,  by  the  situation,  was  favored 
by  the  dominant,  not  to  say  domineering 
influence,  in  that  region,  of  a  very  remarka- 


After  the  Disruption  187 

ble  and  interesting  and  typical  character, 
Nathanael  Emmons,  for  fifty-four  years  pas- 
tor of  Franklin,  educator  in  theology  of  a 
hundred  ministers,  voluminous  author  of 
sermons  and  theological  treatises.  He  was 
the  ideal  New  England  theologian,  who 
could  "look  for  an  hour  at  the  point  of  a 
needle  without  winking,"  and  spend  four- 
teen such  hours  daily  in  his  study.  He  was 
reverenced  by  those  who  knew  him  well, 
for  his  ascetic  sanctity;  and  impartial  critics 
have  admired  not  only  the  closeness  of  his 
reasoning,  but  the  fervid  earnestness  of  his 
sermons.  Neither  was  he  so  rapt  in  celes- 
tial contemplations  as  to  lose  sight  of  earthly 
affairs.  He  was  actively  interested  in  mis- 
sionary enterprises  and  in  public  reforms 
and  in  the  ethical  aspects  of  civil  politics. 
It  is  not  strange  that  this  vindicator  of  the 
autocratic  sovereignty  of  God  should  find 
little  to  approve  in  the  doctrinaire  democracy 
of  Thomas  Jefferson,  whom  he  picturesquely 
characterized,  in  a  famous  sermon,  as  "Jer- 


i88        The  Congregationalists 

oboam  the  son  of  Nebat  which  made  Israel 
to  sin." 

Oddly  enough,  in  passing  from  civil  polity 
to  ecclesiastical,  he  seems  to  have  parted 
with  his  "  iron  logic  "  and  his  grammar,  and 
also  with  his  principles.  For  his  **  Scrip- 
tural Platform  of  Ecclesiastical  Government " 
(1826 — some  later  editions  have  been  **  doc- 
tored") is  a  piece  of  low-grade  "social- 
compact"  Jacobinism,  fallaciously  argued 
and  blunderingly  expressed.  A  church,  ac- 
cording to  this  ''platform,"  is  a  club  the 
members  of  which  are  bound  to  such  mu- 
tual duties  as  they  may  have  agreed  upon. 
It  is  ''essential"  to  the  club,  as  "to  every 
voluntary  society,  to  admit  whom  they 
please  into  their  number,"  and  to  rule  out 
or  blackball  whom  they  please.  This  is  the 
working  basis  on  which  the  organization  of 
the  seceding  churches  of  Eastern  Massachu- 
setts proceeded;  and  the  principle  which  it 
illustrated,  though  not  adopted  in  articulate 
form,  proceeding,  nevertheless,  from  so  in- 


After  the  Disruption  189 

fluential  a  centre  as  Boston,  has  had  a  wide 
and  pernicious  vogue  in  American  church 
history. 

The  first  step  taken  in  Boston  towards  re- 
trieving the  painful  losses  of  the  Orthodox 
party,  was  taken  with  wisdom  and  energy. 
The  most  commanding  position  in  the  city 
was  secured,  at  the  corner  of  the  Common, 
and  a  noble  building  erected,  to  be  the  home 
of  the  newly  organized  ''Park  Street 
Church."  This  organization  was  effected 
in  1809,  while  the  rupture  between  the  par- 
ties was  yet  incomplete.  But  the  manner 
of  it  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  pur- 
pose of  the  enterprise.  The  members  de- 
clared their  acceptance  of  the  Westminster 
Shorter  Catechism  and  of  the  Savoy  Con- 
fession, and  then  added  a  creed  of  their 
own,  drawn  out  in  many  articles,  to  be  used 
as  a  test  for  the  exclusion  of  applicants  for 
membership  who  might  be  otherwise 
minded.  It  was  to  be  frankly  and  expressly 
a  sectarian  church.     This  was  not  the  first 


igo        The  Congregationalists 

instance  of  this  departure  from  the  Congre- 
gational usage  which  was  still  faithfully 
cherished  by  the  old  parish  churches;  but  it 
was  doubtless  the  most  conspicuous  and  in- 
fluential instance.  The  Andover  students 
would  naturally  take  it  as  an  object-lesson 
in  church  administration,  and  apply  it  as  the 
normal  method,  at  remote  points.  Mr.  Joel 
Hawes,  coming,  in  1818  from  Andover  to 
the  ancient  church  of  Thomas  Hooker  at 
Hartford,  persuaded  the  church  to  set  aside 
the  ancient  covenant  that  had  been  in  use 
from  time  immemorial,  and  substitute  an 
elaborate  code  of  doctrine  in  eleven  articles, 
to  which  candidates  for  membership  were 
required  to  give  publicly  their  "cordial  as- 
sent." Through  the  New  England  mission- 
aries the  novel  usage  spread  into  the  Presby- 
terian Church;  and  Scotchmen  who  had 
been  accustomed  to  seeing  the  elders 
sworn  into  office  by  the  Westminster 
standards  were  surprised  to  find  the  like 
dogmatic     tests     applied    to    the    tender 


After  the  Disruption  191 

souls    of    neophytes    at    their    first  com- 
munion. 

The  Park  Street  meeting-house  came  to 
be  a  sort  of  cathedral  church  to  the  Ortho- 
dox Congregationalists.  From  Andover 
came  Prof.  Edward  Dorr  Griffin,  a  thunder- 
bolt of  theologic  war,  who  in  1811,  re- 
signed his  professorship  to  become  pastor 
of  the  church,  and  in  a  course  of  Sun- 
day evening  lectures,  afterwards  pub- 
lished, set  forth  his  convictions  of  truth  in 
the  most  uncompromising,  not  to  say  ex- 
treme manner.  It  was  sermons  like  that  in- 
cluded in  his  published  works,  "On  the 
Use  of  Real  Fire  in  Hell,"  that  won  for  the 
church  the  popular  title  of  **  Brimstone 
Corner,"  and  gave  point  to  the  practical 
comment  of  some  irreverent  hearer  who 
sifted  a  train  of  flowers  of  sulphur  from  the 
church  door  to  the  door  of  the  parsonage. 
In  like  spirit  did  Dr.  Edward  Payson,  with 
what  he  doubtless  deemed  to  be  a  holy 
boldness,  propound  his  doctrine  of  human 


192         The  Congregationalists 

nature,  that  **by  nature  man  is,  in  stupidity 
and  insensibility,  a  block;  in  sensuality  and 
sottishness,  a  beast,  and  in  pride,  malice, 
cruelty  and  treachery,  a  devil."  It  is  easy 
to  believe  (what  indeed  can  be  proved)  that 
preachers  whose  teaching  concerning  hu- 
man nature  was  in  such  terms,  were  not  in- 
capable of  speaking  of  the  divine  nature  in 
such  a  way  as  to  justify  the  charge  of  trithe- 
ism  so  freely  made  against  them,  and  so  in- 
dignantly repelled. 

Thus  on  both  sides  of  the  dividing  line, 
appeared  some  of  the  unhappy  results  of 
the  great  schism.  The  two  wings  of  the 
noble  brotherhood  of  the  New  England 
churches  had  gone  asunder,  and  each  wing 
by  itself  made  a  somewhat  wobbling  flight. 
If  (as  we  have  seen)  the  left  wing  bore 
away  perilously  in  the  direction  of  unbelief, 
the  right  wing  was  swaying  towards  forms 
of  over-believing  and  misbelieving  hardly 
less  pernicious.  Happily  for  those  whose 
dangers  lay  in  this  direction,  the  polemic 


After  the  Disruption  193 

excesses  of  some  near  the  storm-centre 
were  in  a  way  to  be  held  in  check  by  the 
good  sense  of  their  brethren  more  remote 
from  the  agitations  and  exasperations  of 
controversy. 

Not  less  happily  new  and  inspiring  duties 
now  emerged,  lifting  their  hearts  into  a 
freer  and  serener  atmosphere  than  that  of 
the  local  contentions  in  which  they  were  all 
the  time  tempted  to  waste  their  strength  in 
*'  beating  their  fellow-servants." 

Among  the  fairest  fruits  of  the  Second 
Awakening  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  the  little  company  of  Williams 
College  students  that  was  wont  to  meet  be- 
side a  haystack  in  a  secluded  meadow,  to 
pray  for  the  conversion  of  the  world  to 
Christ.  In  1810,  the  third  year  of  the  Sem- 
inary at  Andover,  came  these  young  gradu- 
ates of  Williams,  Samuel  John  Mills,  Luther 
Rice,  Gordon  Hall,  and  James  Richards, 
their  hearts  all  aglow  with  a  generous  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


194        The  Congregationalists 

Their  noble  enthusiasm  infected  their  fel- 
low-students, and  Adoniram  Judson  from 
Brown  University,  Samuel  Newell  from 
Harvard  and  Samuel  Nott  from  Union  were 
added  to  the  number  of  *'The  Brethren" 
committed  to  personal  service  as  mission- 
aries to  the  heathen.  They  applied  for  ad- 
vice to  the  General  Association  of  Massa- 
chusetts, then  lately  organized  for  ministe- 
rial fellowship  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Lib- 
erals, and  by  this  body  measures  were  taken 
that  resulted  in  the  organization,  at  the 
house  of  Noah  Porter  of  Farmington,  in 
1810,  of  the  "  American  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners for  Foreign  Missions."  In  the  face 
of  serious  discouragements  the  first  five 
missionaries  from  America  to  a  foreign 
country,  Judson,  Newell,  Nott,  Hall  and 
Rice,  were  sent  to  India.  The  fact  that  two 
of  the  five,  Judson  and  Rice,  shortly  after 
landing,  announced  their  conscientious 
adoption  of  Baptist  principles,  however  dis- 
heartening at  first,  fell  out  wonderfully  to 


After  the  Disruption  195 

the  furtherance  of  the  gospel ;  for  it  was  not 
only  the  beginning  of  Judson's  apostolic 
mission  to  Burmah,  but  it  led  to  the  com- 
mitting of  the  Baptist  denomination  to  the 
enterprise  of  missions  which  it  has  prose- 
cuted with  honorable  success. 

The  American  Board  has  been  the  parent, 
directly  or  indirectly,  of  all  American  mis- 
sions in  heathen  lands.  The  nine  commis- 
sioners from  Massachusetts  and  Connecti- 
cut, of  whom  it  originally  consisted,  soon 
added  to  their  number  representatives  of  the 
Presbyterian  and  Dutch  churches,  and  the 
Board  continued  to  be  the  channel  of  mis- 
sionary activity  for  both  these  denomina- 
tions until,  after  many  years,  they  consti- 
tuted their  separate  organizations.  The 
catalogue  of  its  missions  is  a  roll  of  honor 
splendidly  adorned  with  the  names  of  con- 
fessors and  martyrs,  and  with  the  record 
not  only  of  heroic  endeavor  but  of  success- 
ful achievement. 

The  spirit  of  organization  for  beneficence 


196        The  Congregationalists 

on  a  national  or  ecumenical  scale  possessed 
the  Congregational  churches  at  this  period. 
A  striking  exemplification  of  the  large- 
minded  and  unselfish  way  in  which  the 
business  was  done  is  found  in  the  institu- 
tion at  Boston,  in  181 5,  of  the  Education 
Society  for  furnishing  recruits  for  the  min- 
istry. Its  benefactions  were  to  be  widely 
diffused,  and  representatives  of  other  de- 
nominations, including  Bishop  Griswold  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  were  in  the  list  of 
officers.  It  ceased  to  be  servant  of  all  the 
churches  only  when  other  churches  preferred 
to  serve  themselves.  As  early  as  1814,  a  re- 
ligious Tract  Society  was  founded  at  An- 
dover,  afterwards  transferred  to  Boston, 
and  becoming  transfigured  into  the  Ameri- 
can Tract  Society,  and  at  last  merged  with 
one  of  the  same  name  in  New  York,  at- 
tained to  wide  influence.  There  have  been 
many  to  grieve  that  the  Congregational 
churches  should  have  spent  their  strength  in 
furnishing  and  circulating  literature    "ac- 


After  the  Disruption  197 

ceptable  to  all  evangelical  Christians,"  while 
other  sects  were  energetically  pushing  the 
literature  favoring  their  several  pretensions; 
and  there  have  been  not  a  few  to  congratu- 
late themselves  on  belonging  to  a  fellowship 
capable  of  such  honorable  self-abnegation. 

When  the  first  party  of  five  missionaries 
sailed  for  India  by  way  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  Mills,  the  foremost  of  the  brother- 
hood, found  himself  bound  in  spirit  to  go 
in  the  opposite  direction.  With  one  com- 
panion, commissioned  by  the  Connecticut 
Missionary  Society,  he  set  out  on  an  adven- 
turous journey  of  missionary  exploration 
through  the  unknown  Southwest  as  far  as 
New  Orleans,  preaching,  distributing  Bibles, 
and  founding  churches  and  Bible  Societies. 
Insatiable  of  toil  and  hardship,  he  started 
two  years  later  (1814)  on  a  second  tour 
through  the  same  region,  preaching  at  St. 
Louis  the  first  Protestant  sermon  that  had 
been  heard  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
with  protracted  labor  organizing  the  First 


198        The  Congregationalists 

Presbyterian  Church  in  that  Roman  CathoUc 
town — the  mother  of  many  Presbyterian 
churches  manned,  under  the  Plan  of  Union, 
by  Congregational  pastors  sustained  by  the 
Missionary  Society  of  Connecticut.  Out  of 
the  labors  of  Mills,  and  the  reports  which  he 
brought  home  with  him,  came  the  merger 
of  several  local  Bible  societies  in  the  Ameri- 
can Bible  Society,  1816. 

In  his  long  horseback  journeys  through 
the  wilderness  the  prophetic  soul  of  this 
young  man  had  ample  time  to  ponder  an 
even  bolder  project  of  evangelic  enterprise, 
which,  however,  was  not  original  with  him- 
self. Nearly  fifty  years  before,  Samuel 
Hopkins  and  his  erudite  neighbor  at  New- 
port, Ezra  Stiles,  had  actually  begun  collect- 
ing money  to  be  applied  to  the  educating  of 
Christian  negroes  in  America,  and  sending 
them  forth  as  missionaries  to  the  Dark  Con- 
tinent. This  was  the  project  that  had  a  new 
birth  in  the  heart  of  Mills.  In  1816  he  per- 
suaded the  Presbyterian  ''Synod  of  New 


After  the  Disruption  199 

York  and  New  Jersey "  to  enter  upon  his 
plan  for  educating  Christian  men  of  color 
for  the  work  of  the  gospel  in  their  father- 
land. That  same  year  he  sailed  in  company 
with  the  Rev.  Ebenezer  Burgess  (afterwards 
pastor  of  the  "exiled"  church  of  Dedham) 
to  explore  the  coast  of  Africa  for  the  site  for 
a  colony.  On  the  return  voyage  he  died, 
and  his  body  was  committed  to  the  sea. 
When  his  surviving  colleague  brought  home 
the  sorrowful  news,  good  men  made  lamen- 
tation; and  some  remembered  how  he  had 
said  to  one  of  his  fellows,  as  the  class  was 
scattering  at  the  end  of  its  studies,  "  You 
and  I,  brother,  are  little  men,  but  before  we 
die,  our  influence  must  be  felt  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world."  Only  five  years  of 
active  service,  but  the  young  man's  word 
had  come  true! 

The  crowning  act  of  this  decade  of  benef- 
icent organization  was  the  instituting  of  the 
American  Home  Missionary  Society  in  1826. 
It  was   well   named  "American,"  for  the 


200        The  Congregationalists 

only  limitation  on  the  largeness  and  freedom 
of  its  mission  work  was  the  geographical 
limitation  implied  in  that  title.  It  was  in- 
tended to  coordinate  and  economize  the 
work  of  many  societies,  presbyteries  and 
synods,  under  the  *'  Plan  of  Union"  which 
already  for  a  quarter-century  had  been  in 
operation,  to  the  great  aggrandizement  and 
invigoration  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and 
inevitably  to  the  infusing  into  the  articulate 
system  of  Presbyterianism  something  of  the 
spirit  that  had  been  trained  in  the  town- 
meetings  and  Congregational  churches  and 
the  searching  theological  discussions  of  New 
England.  By  and  by,  when  satisfaction  in 
the  growing  numbers,  wealth  and  influence 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  shall  come  into 
collision,  in  some  minds,  with  jealousy  of 
the  prevalence  of  this  new  spirit,  conse- 
quences may  ensue  which  could  not  be  dis- 
tinctly forecast  in  advance. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PUBLIC  REFORMS 

It  took  a  wonderfully  short  time  to  re- 
cruit the  Boston  Orthodox  Congregational- 
ists  to  a  much  higher  effective  force  than 
that  of  the  entire  body  of  the  churches  be- 
fore the  disruption.  The  work  may  be 
considered  as  mainly  achieved,  when,  in 
1826,  that  fiery  spirit,  Lyman  Beecher,  was 
persuaded,  at  the  high  noontide  of  his 
great  powers,  to  leave  his  rural  parish  on 
the  hills  of  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  to  be- 
come pastor  of  the  newly  organized  Han- 
over Street  Church.  Here  the  intense  ear- 
nestness of  his  preaching,  with  its  strong 
appeal  to  the  reason  as  well  as  to  the  feel- 
ings, was  attended  with  constant  and  great 
spiritual  results.  For  the  six  years  that  he 
remained,  he  was  as  distinctly  the  most 


202         The  Congregationalists 

conspicuous  leader  of  the  Evangelical 
churches  as  Dr.  Channing  of  the  Liberal 
churches.  Two  eminently  good  men  more 
contrasted  in  every  quality  of  intellect  and 
temperament  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of, 
than  these  two  representative  Congregation- 
alists. It  so  happened  that  the  time  when 
they  were  serving  so  near  each  other,  yet 
completely  out  of  each  other's  sight  and 
touch,  was  a  time  when  the  Congregational 
churches  all  with  one  accord,  though  in  two 
divisions,  were  taking  conspicuous  part  in 
some  of  those  reformatory  movements  in 
which  from  the  beginning  they  have  had  a 
noble  record;  it  was  also  a  time  when  the 
two  parties,  beside  the  conflict  of  each 
against  the  other,  were  grievously  vexed 
each  with  sore  controversy  among  its  own 
members.  How  the  Unitarian  fellowship 
was  distracted  by  the  emerging  of  theTran- 
scendentalists  and  the  neology  of  Parker  we 
have  already  briefly  told.  Hardly  more 
time  need  we  spend  in  narrating  the  small 


Public  Reforms  203 

contentions  over  questions  of  the  metaphys- 
ics of  theology  which  embroiled  parties  and 
schools  among  the  Evangelicals.  It  is  diffi- 
cult at  the  present  day  to  appreciate  the 
eagerness  with  which  the  tenuous  distinc- 
tions that  divided  Andover  from  New 
Haven,  and  afterwards  East  Windsor  from 
both,  were  gravely  debated  among  the  abler 
men,  and  painfully  pettifogged  by  the 
lesser.  Doubtless  these  divisions  of  party  and 
faction,  acrimonious  as  they  were,  were  in 
some  measure  mitigated  by  the  common 
zeal  of  all  for  great  human  interests. 

The  interest  of  the  Puritan  churches  of 
America  in  the  conflict  with  drunkenness 
dates  from  their  foundation.  Among  the 
earliest  public  ordinances  of  the  legislatures 
were  those  for  repressing  the  abuse  of  ar- 
dent spirits.  The  '*  Reforming  Synod"  put 
special  emphasis  on  the  importance  of  en- 
forcing these  laws.  In  fact  the  laws  were 
of  a  most  wise  and  salutary  character,  such 
as  later  devices  have  not  much  improved 


204        The  Congregationalists 

upon.  Under  them  the  tippling-house, 
"saloon,"  or  public  barroom  was  illegal. 
The  taverner's  license  empowered  him  to 
furnish  to  his  lodgers  their  customary 
drinks;  but  not  to  allow  drinking  at  the  bar 
to  his  neighbors.  President  Dwight,  in  his 
'*  Travels,"  notes  the  contrast  between  the 
orderly  New  England  tavern,  under  the  re- 
straint of  this  law,  and  the  disorder  visible 
at  the  taverns  beyond  the  New  York  line, 
v^/here  the  license  was  regarded  as  a  means 
of  raising  revenue.  Nevertheless  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  a  result 
of  combined  causes  not  difficult  to  trace, 
there  had  come  a  wide-spread  and  pitiable 
lapse  into  drunken  habits.  Simultaneously, 
in  various  parts  of  the  American  church, 
there  was  a  sudden  awakening  to  an  evil 
and  peril  that  had  grown  stealthily  and  un- 
observed. It  is  no  extravagant  boast  to  say 
that  among  the  earliest  and  most  efficient 
leaders  of  the  new  reformation  were  the 
foremost      men    of     the    Congregational 


Public  Reforms  205 

churches.  Ebenezer  Porter,  Heman  Hum- 
phrey, and  the  heroic  layman,  Jeremiah 
Evarts,  were  of  the  number.  But  the  names 
of  Lyman  Beecher  and  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ningare  honorably  preeminent  in  these  early 
days.  Suddenly  confronted  with  the  actual 
state  of  society  by  an  incident  in  his  pastoral 
work  in  Litchfield,  Beecher  burst  forth  with 
an  eruption  of  volcanic  eloquence  in  "Six 
Sermons  on  Intemperance"  which  were  re- 
peated in  Boston  and  published  in  many 
editions.  In  impressive  contrast  with  his 
impetuous  neighbor,  Channing,  with  calm 
intensity  of  speech,  argued  from  his  cher- 
ished tenet  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature, 
which  he  held  with  justifiable  reaction  from 
the  extravagant  statements  of  the  tradition- 
ary theology,  against  the  vice  which  debased 
one  made  "  little  lower  than  the  angels  "  to 
the  level  of  the  lunatic  or  the  idiot  or  the  brute. 
And  no  doubt,  thisgentler  voice  could  reach 
many  a  heart  and  conscience  to  which 
louder  tones  found  no  access. 


2o6        The  Congregationalists 

The  first  national  temperance  society  was 
organized  in  1826.  The  best  and  most  en- 
during work  of  the  reformation  was 
achieved  within  ten  years  from  that  date; 
and  it  was  accomplished  ''without  law, 
without  any  attempt  at  legislation,  by  the 
mere  force  of  public  opinion."  It  was  the 
work  of  the  Christian  church,  wherein  if 
many  daughters  of  Zion  did  virtuously,  it 
would  be  willingly  admitted  that  the  Con- 
gregational clergy  and  churches,  and  those 
that  had  been  colonized  from  them  into  the 
Presbyterian  Church  excelled  them  all. 

Later,  the  work  took  on  a  more  ascetic 
and  censorious  character.  From  the  year 
1840  it  was  assumed  very  much  into  the 
hands  of  professional  "reformed  drunk- 
ards" naturally  inclined  to  extenuate  their 
own  faults  by  describing  themselves  as 
"victims"  and  putting  the  blame  on  "the 
traffic";  and  into  the  hands  of  politicians 
who  promised  to  secure  the  triumph  of 
virtue  by  exterminating  temptation.     Even 


Public  Reforms  207 

through  these  devious  courses  it  was  sus- 
tained by  a  great  following  from  the 
churches,  but  no  longer  with  that  unanimity 
to  which  was  due  its  early  success. 

With  reference  to  the  subject  of  slavery, 
also,  the  record  of  the  primeval  Congrega- 
tionalists  was  wholly  noble.  The  unbroken 
succession  of  protests  and  deeds  against 
slavery  has  often  been  recorded,  from  the 
acts  of  the  Great  and  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts  (which,  be  it  remembered, 
was  also  a  church  court)  through  the  utter- 
ances of  John  Eliot  and  Samuel  Sewall  and 
Cotton  Mather,  down  to  the  days  of  the 
war  of  independence,  when  the  voices  of 
Samuel  Hopkins  and  Ezra  Stiles  and  Levi 
Hart  and  Aaron  Cleveland,  with  many 
others,  were  lifted  up  in  chorus  in  denunci- 
ation of  the  wrong.  A  little  later  (1791) 
the  younger  Jonathan  Edwards  preached 
before  the  Connecticut  Abolition  Society 
that  sermon  on  "  The  Injustice  and  Impolicy 
of  the  Slave-trade"  which  was  long  cher- 


2o8        The  Congregationalists 

ished  and  circulated  as  a  classic  of  anti- 
slavery  literature.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
derogate  from  the  high  honor  due  to 
Baptists,  Methodists,  Presbyterians  and 
Quakers,  in  thus  asserting  the  worthy 
position  held  by  the  Congregationalists  in 
the  conflict  with  slavery.  The  tug  of  war 
began  with  the  successful  aggression  of 
slavery  in  extending  its  domain  beyond  the 
Mississippi  in  1820.  Four  trumpet-toned 
articles  by  Jeremiah  Evarts  in  The  Panoplist, 
rallied  the  opposition  from  its  momentary 
discouragement,  to  an  immediate,  general, 
sustained  and  systematic  effort  for  the  abo- 
lition of  slavery.  The  response  was 
prompt  and  general.  Those  parts  of  it 
which  most  concern  this  story  are  the  cru- 
sade organized  by  the  students  of  Andover 
for  anti-slavery  agitation  by  the  press  and 
by  speakers  detailed  to  the  neighbor  towns; 
the  annual  fourth-of-July  anti-slavery  mass 
meetings  maintained  by  the  united  Congre- 
gational and  Baptist  churches  at  Park  Street 


Public  Reforms  209 

Church,  Boston;  and  the  effort,  originating 
at  Andover,  for  the  establishment  of  a  col- 
lege for  the  liberal  education  of  young  men 
of  color — an  effort  that  narrowly  failed  of 
success. 

The  Congregational  churches  had  some 
advantages  over  others,  with  the  drawbacks 
incidental  to  them,  in  their  dealing  with  this 
question,  destined  to  become  so  exciting 
and  divisive,  i.  They  had  only  the  scant- 
iest affiliations  at  the  South,  which  gave 
them  the  less  power  of  influence  over  slave- 
holding  communities,  but  released  them 
from  one  temptation  to  make  undue  con- 
cessions to  them.  2.  Their  State  repre- 
sentative bodies,  at  this  time,  were  exclu- 
sively clerical,  and  so  exempt  from  the 
danger  of  being  unduly  swayed  by  politi- 
cian members.  3.  Their  large  charitable 
and  religious  operations  were  carried  on, 
not  by  delegated  bodies  framed  into  the 
constitution  of  the  churches,  but  by  volun- 
tary associations  of  individuals,  undertaking 


210        The  Congregationalists 

the  duty  of  almoners  in  behalf  of  as  many 
as  might  choose  to  trust  them,  and  leaving 
the  rest  free  to  choose  some  other  channel 
for  their  bounty.  These  were  among  the 
conditions  that  made  it  comparatively  easy 
for  the  Congregationalists  to  pass  through  a 
most  difficult  crisis  with  conspicuous  fidelity 
to  truth  and  righteousness. 

During  this  period  of  "  storm  and  stress  " 
the  churches  were  exposed  to  a  double 
danger.  Either  they  might  be  tempted,  by 
no  ignoble  considerations,  to  compromise 
the  interests  of  justice  and  humanity  for 
the  sake  of  religious  or  national  peace;  or 
they  might  be  incited  to  a  polemic  fury  of 
denunciation,  censoriousness  and  hatred. 
To  hold  the  religious  public,  in  its  various 
organizations  to  the  middle  course  of  strict 
righteousness  was  no  light  task.  Among 
those  whose  influence  most  availed  to  ac- 
complish it,  with  Albert  Barnes  of  the 
Presbyterians  and  Francis  Wayland  of  the 
Baptists,  like  precedence  will  be  generally 


Public  Reforms  211 

conceded  to  the  names  of  Channing  and 
Leonard  Bacon,  Congregational  pastors. 

Out  of  many  incidents  of  that  period  of 
anti-slavery  agitation  of  which  the  Missouri 
Compromise  (1820)  was  the  beginning,  and 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  by 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  (1854)  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end,  four  may  be  named  as 
of  leading  importance — the  founding  of 
Oberlin  College  and  Theological  Seminary 
(1834-5) ;  the  slavery  debate  in  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions (1845);  the  founding  of  The  Independ- 
ent (1848);  and  the  Albany  Convention 
(1852). 

For  those  who  know  only  the  Oberlin  of 
to-day,  well  endowed,  abounding  in  num- 
bers and  resources,  firmly  intrenched  in  the 
confidence  of  the  American  church,  and 
glorious  with  the  prestige  of  great  spiritual 
achievement,  there  is  needed  no  small  effort 
of  the  historic  imagination  to  realize  not 
only  the  feebleness  and  heroism  of  faith  in 


212        The  Congregationalists 

which  it  made  its  beginnings,  but  also  the 
serious  distrust  with  which  it  was  regarded 
by  wise  and  good  men  both  at  the  West 
and  at  the  East  who  were  intent  on  the 
same  objects  by  different  methods.  The 
founders  of  this  great  institution  were  of 
the  number  of  the  ''young  men  who  see 
visions."  A  young  Presbyterian  pastor  at 
Elyria,  Ohio,  John  J.  Shipherd,  and  an  ex-mis- 
sionary to  the  Choctaw  Indians,  Philo  P. 
Stewart,  then  living  at  Shipherd's  house,  con- 
certed between  them  the  plan  of  a  college 
open  alike  to  men  and  women,  furnishing  a 
liberal  education  at  the  lowest  possible  cost; 
about  the  college  as  a  centre,  they  would 
plant  a  community  of  Christian  people  like- 
minded  with  themselves.  With  few  induce- 
ments beside  the  sheer  joy  of  self-sacrifice, 
they  gathered  a  little  company  of  New  Eng- 
land Pioneers  in  Ohio.  They  secured  the 
title  to  a  township  of  wild  land  in  the 
"Western  Reserve,"  entered  upon  it,  axe  in 
hand,  cleared  land  and  built  their  cabins  and 


Public  Reforms  213 

their  first  college  building.  Soon  an  incident 
occurred  which  gave  an  unexpected  forward 
impulse  to  the  undertaking.  At  Lane 
Theological  Seminary  in  Cincinnati,  where 
Lyman  Beecher  had  come  from  Boston  to 
be  president,  and  Calvin  E.  Stowe  was  pro- 
fessor, discussion  ran  high  among  the  stu- 
dents on  the  slavery  question;  which  be- 
coming known  to  the  trustees,  they,  with- 
out consulting  the  faculty,  undertook  to 
suppress  it  by  edict.  The  result  was  that 
four-fifths  of  the  students  agreed  to  go  to 
Oberlin  on  condition  that  the  evangelist, 
Charles  G.  Finney,  should  be  secured  as 
their  instructor.  The  condition  was  ful- 
filled, and  the  seminary  which  the  projec- 
tors of  this  pilgrim  colony  had  longingly 
hoped  for  was  born  in  a  day.  With  small 
respect  to  the  warnings  of  prudent  men  as 
to  the  force  of  public  prejudice,  the 
college  was  freely  open  not  only  to 
both  sexes  but  to  all  races.  Without 
compromise    or    apology,    the    institution 


214        ^^^  Congregationalists 

was   committed  to  a  bold  and  unpopular 
radicalism. 

Mr.  Finney  himself  was  an  impersonation 
of  the  characteristics  of  Oberlin.  A  man  of 
absolute  consecration,  of  ascetic  self-denial, 
of  tireless  activity  and  endurance,  he  had 
ranged  the  country,  east  and  west,  on  tours 
of  revival  preaching  that  had  been  attended 
by  remarkable  results,  not  only  of  momen- 
tary agitation  (which  was  often  great)  but 
of  the  solid  and  lasting  conversion,  espe- 
cially of  men  of  intelligence  and  force,  to 
lives  of  intense  evangelic  earnestness  like 
his  own.  But  his  beneficent  work  was  as- 
sociated with  "new  measures"  and  new 
forms  of  doctrinal  statement  that  excited 
serious  misgiving  or  positive  disapproval. 
His  theology  was  in  advance  even  of  the 
Edwardean  school,  in  its  insistence  on 
"  ability  as  commensurate  with  obligation," 
and  on  a  tenet  of  "  Oberlin  perfectionism  " 
which  led  near  the  perilous  verge,  and  in 
some  cases  beyond  the  verge,  of  antinomi- 


Public  Reforms  215 

anism.  For  many  years  an  Oberlin  graduate 
was  liable  to  be  looked  on  doubtfully  by 
cautious  men,  until  he  had  personally  given 
proof  of  soundness  of  doctrine  and  sobriety 
of  judgment.  Under  a  more  rigid  polity, 
such  deviations  would  have  led  (as  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church  they  did  lead)  to  de- 
nominational schism.  In  this  case,  they  led 
to  earnest  and  instructive  discussion,  to  the 
slow  modification  of  opinions  and  methods 
on  both  sides,  and  to  the  grateful  recogni- 
tion of  Oberlin  as  a  noble  reinforcement  in 
that  service  of  Christ  to  which  it  had  been 
consecrated  by  the  prayers  of  its  founders. 
The  debate  and  consequent  action  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  at  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,  at  Brooklyn,  in  1845, 
were  of  critical  importance.  The  question 
at  issue  was  whether  every  holder  of  a 
slave  ought  by  a  fixed  rule  to  be  excom- 
municated, without  regard  to  his  conduct 
Nn  that  relation.     The  representatives  of  the 


2i6        The  Congregationalists 

Anti-slavery  Society,  present  in  force,  urged 
the  affirmative.  Tlie  question  was  debated 
witii  patience  and  thoroughness,  and  at  the 
end  a  report  was  unanimously  adopted 
reprobating  in  the  strongest  language  the 
system  of  slavery,  but  refusing  to  sanction 
the  rule  condemning  every  slaveholder  re- 
gardless of  his  conduct  as  such.  The 
unanimity  of  this  action  was  proof  of  that 
sober  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  Ameri- 
can church  in  its  several  sects  which  carried 
the  country,  at  last,  for  freedom.  Of 
course  many  were  disappointed  at  the 
failure  of  extreme  action,  and  the  cry  was 
raised  that  "the  church  was  the  bulwark  of 
slavery."  But  it  was  a  happy  illustration  of 
the  flexibility  with  which  the  Congregational 
polity  accommodates  itself  to  new  exigen- 
cies, that  the  dissatisfied  party  found  their 
redress  so  ready  to  their  hand.  Not  being 
content  with  the  declared  policy  of  its 
almoner,  they  were  free  to  find  another. 
Within  a  year  the  ''American  Missionary 


Public  Reforms  217 

Association  "  was  organized  on  distinctly 
and  aggressively  anti-slavery  principles, 
and  offered  its  services  as  an  agency  for 
both  home  and  foreign  missions.  There 
was  nothing  schismatic  in  this.  The  new 
society  entered  at  once  on  a  limited  but 
useful  work;  and  the  effect  of  its  bid 
for  the  confidence  of  the  churches  was 
wholly  salutary.  The  history  of  this  and 
some  like  incidents  may  well  satisfy  the 
student  that  the  best  security  against 
abuses  in  large  charitable  operations  lies  in 
the  ready  facility  with  which  one  agency 
may  be  exchanged  for  another,  on  the 
slightest  occasion.  A  more  recent  illus- 
tration of  the  same  principle  was  presented 
on  occasion  of  a  serious  dissatisfaction  with 
the  doings  of  the  executive  of  the  "Ameri- 
can Board."  The  organization  of  a  *'  Berke- 
ley Temple  Committee "  promptly  sup- 
plemented the  defaults  of  the  Board,  and 
afforded  that  body  a  locus  penitentice  of 
which  it  was  not  unduly  slow  to  avail  itself. 


2i8        The  Congregationalists 

Another  incident  of  this  period  which 
requires  little  more  than  mention,  but  which 
is  too  important  to  the  later  history  not  to 
be  mentioned,  is  the  founding  of  The  Inde- 
pendent newspaper  in  New  York,  in  1848, 
with  Leonard  Bacon,  Joseph  P.  Thompson 
and  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Jr.,  as  editors, 
Joshua  Leavitt  as  office  editor,  and  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  then  lately  come  from  the 
West  to  be  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church, 
Brooklyn,  as  special  contributor.  The  start- 
ing of  this  metropolitan  enterprise  was  one 
indication  out  of  many,  of  the  disposition 
of  the  Congregationalists  to  escape  from 
their  provincial  limitations  and  to  take  the 
continent  for  a  field  of  work.  Already  they 
had  showed  a  notable  proclivity  to  religious 
journalism.  Thomas  Prince,  Jr.,  in  1743-4, 
had  published  his  weekly  journal  of  revival 
news  under  the  title  of  The  Christian 
History.  The  Boston  Recorder  was  insti- 
tuted in  the  height  of  the  Unitarian  contro- 
versy with  Sidney  E.  Morse,  son  of  Jedediah, 


Public  Reforms  219 

as  editor;  and  through  sundry  changes  of 
title  is  continued  to  this  day  as  The  Congre- 
gationalist.  The  Religious  Intelligencer y 
at  New  Haven,  early  in  the  century  did  im- 
portant service  in  guiding  the  swelling 
current  of  anti-slavery  discussion.  In  1823 
the  brothers  Morse  founded,  and  for  twenty- 
five  years  conducted,  along  cautiously  con- 
servative lines,  The  New  York  Observer. 
In  1 83 1  The  New  York  Evangelist  v^2iS  be- 
gun by  Joshua  Leavitt;  one  of  its  earliest 
successes  was  the  publication  of  reports  of 
Mr.  Finney's  sermons  and  lectures.  In  its 
later  management,  much  of  its  editorial 
writing  was  done  by  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon 
and  by  his  son  George,  pastor  at  Orange. 
The  fact  that  so  much  of  this  important 
work  of  Congregationalists  was  done  in  no 
distinct  connection  with  their  denomination 
was  highly  characteristic.  But  the  new  jour- 
nal was  at  the  beginning  an  expounder  and 
advocate  of  Congregationalism.  It  was  an 
invaluable  adjuvant  in  the  new  westward 


220        The  Congregationalists 

movement  of  the  New  England  polity. 
And  in  the  thickening  slavery  debate  it  was 
a  mighty  defender  of  those  sober  and 
strongly  defensible  positions  against  slavery 
which  came  to  be  the  positions  of  the  loyal 
states  and  of  the  nation. 

For  more  than  two  centuries,  since  the 
Cambridge  Synod  of  1846-8,  there  had  been 
no  attempt  at  a  general  meeting  represent- 
ing the  Congregationalists  of  America,  when 
a  movement  of  the  General  Association  of 
Michigan  resulted  in  an  invitation  to  every 
Congregational  church  in  the  United  States 
to  be  represented  by  pastor  and  delegate  at 
a  convention  at  Albany,  October  5,  1852. 
There  was  serious  reason  why  the  demand 
for  such  a  convention  should  proceed  from 
the  West.  The  "  Plan  of  Union  "  had  been 
repudiated  in  no  courteous  fashion  by  the 
Old  School  majority  in  the  Presbyterian 
General  Assembly  at  the  time  of  its  high- 
handed act  of  excision  by  which  that  sect 
had  been  broken  into  two  nearly  equal  parts. 


Public  Reforms  221 

The  strong  sympathy  of  the  Congregational 
churches  for  the  exscinded  New  School 
Church  had  made  them  reluctant  to  with- 
draw from  that  agreement,  disadvantageous 
to  themselves  as  it  was  known  to  be  in  its 
practical  working.  But  it  was  now  begin- 
ning to  be  apparent  to  both  parties  that  the 
agreement  could  no  longer  be  maintained. 
The  eager  competition  of  the  Presbyterian 
agencies  to  secure  a  foothold  in  new  settle- 
ments "in  advance  of  all  others,"  and  the 
public  disparagement  of  Congregationalism 
at  the  West  as  being  something  far  less  re- 
spectable than  its  New  England  original, 
called  for  an  open  demonstration  of  mutual 
fellowship  between  East  and  West,  and 
some  action  on  the  "Plan"  which  had  so 
manifestly  outlived  its  usefulness.  The 
convention  was  large  and  earnest.  Four 
hundred  and  sixty-three  pastors  and  dele- 
gates were  present.  Its  most  important  ac- 
tion was,  (i),  by  a  unanimous  vote  to  aban- 
don the  "  Plan  of  Union";  (2),  to  reprobate 


222         The  Congregationalists 

the  insinuations  and  charges  against  Con- 
gregationalists at  the  West;  (3),  to  deliver 
with  emphasis  the  unvarying  protest  of 
these  churches  against  the  "stupendous 
wrong"  of  slavery;  (4),  to  undertake  the 
raising  of  a  fund  of  $50,000  to  aid  in  build- 
ing churches  at  the  West — a  fund  that  was 
begun  on  the  spot  by  the  subscription  of 
$10,000  from  one  of  the  delegates.  The 
fund  went  on  growing  till  it  exceeded 
$60,000. 

The  Albany  Convention  cleared  the  way, 
as  it  had  not  been  cleared  before,  for  the 
free  advance  of  Congregational  principles 
and  organizations  at  the  West. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CONGREGATIONALISM   NATIONAL 

In  the  westward  advance  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, it  is  easy,  looking  backward,  to 
recognize,  what  was  not  always  obvious 
at  the  time,  that  there  were  two  Congrega- 
tionalisms moving  forward  together,  some- 
times closely  intertwined.  First  there  was 
the  Congregationalism  of  the  old  New 
England  pattern,  in  which  the  form  of  pol- 
ity was  cherished  as  the  best  means  of 
bringing  the  Christian  people  of  any  com- 
munity into  common  fellowship  and  organ- 
ization. The  principles  of  this  Congrega- 
tionalism implied  the  duty  of  individuals 
and  parties  in  any  community  to  accept  loy- 
ally and  fraternally  the  judgment  of  the 
whole,  even  when  it  contravened  their  own; 
and  by  relieving  the  local  congregation  of 
223 


224        The  Congregationalists 

any  bondage  of  allegiance  to  a  national  sec- 
tarian propaganda,  made  it  the  easier  for 
people  of  various  persuasions  and  preju- 
dices to  come  together.  Secondly,  there 
was  the  come-outerism  commended  by  Dr. 
Emmons  as  a  "Scriptural  Platform  of  Ec- 
clesiastical Government,"  the  "scripture" 
of  which  was  most  distinctly  written  in  the 
"  Contrat  Social"  of  Jean  Jacques  Rous- 
seau. It  involved  an  unlimited  "  right  of 
secession,"  and  the  right  of  the  seceders  to 
organize  on  an  exclusive  basis,  keeping  out 
such  of  their  fellow-Christians  as  were  un- 
congenial to  them.  This  was  the  ideal  un- 
der which  the  seceding  Orthodox  churches 
of  Eastern  Massachusetts  had  been  organ- 
ized into  a  wonderfully  effective  and  aggres- 
sive dissenting  sect.  From  this  influential 
centre  it  widely  affected  the  Congregation- 
alism of  the  whole  country.  Not  only  did 
the  use  of  imposed  and  prescribed  doctrinal 
tests  (so  abhorrent  to  the  Fathers)  come 
into  general  use;    but  the  new  churches 


Congregationalism  National    225 

v/ere  distinctly  labeled  "Trinitarian"  or 
* '  Calvinistic  " ;  and  it  came  to  be  considered 
quite  laudable,  by  stipulations  in  the  cove- 
nant, to  erect  churches  on  an  anti-slavery, 
or  a  total-abstinence,  or  a  prohibitionist 
basis.  The  former  method  gave  rise  to 
Congregational  churches,  sometimes  not 
ostensibly  bearing  that  denomination,  and 
uniting  in  one  fellowship  such  various  ele- 
ments as  go  to  make  up  the  Christian  pop- 
ulation of  a  new  settlement.  The  latter 
constituted  churches  of  Congregaiionalists, 
in  which  each  member  was  presumed  to 
prefer  a  certain  polity  and  type  of  dogma 
and  usage  of  worship.  It  is  remarkable 
that  notions  so  mutually  contradictory  could 
work  so  kindly  in  harness  together  in  home 
mission  work.  It  is  needless  to  ask  which 
of  the  two  was  the  more  effective  force  in 
proselyting  and  propagandism. 

An  interesting  feature  in  the  westward 
work  of  the  Congregational  churches  has 
been  the  part  taken  in  it  by  groups  of  col- 


226        The  Congregationalists 

lege  friends.  In  fact  this  is  a  frequently  re- 
peated feature  of  all  church  history.  To 
name  no  others,  there  was  the  group  of  Ig- 
natius Loyola  and  his  friends  at  Paris;  the 
"  Holy  Club  "  at  Oxford  in  the  days  of  the 
Wesleys;  the  Oriel  College  group  later  at 
the  same  university;  and  (not  unworthy  to 
be  named  with  these  eminent  instances) 
"The  Brethren  "  of  Samuel  J.  Mills  at  Wil- 
liamstown  and  Andover;  and  the  "Illinois 
Band"  organized  at  Yale  Theological  Semi- 
nary in  1827,  the  type  of  later  brotherhoods 
devoted  to  like  service,  and  of  more  recent 
fraternities  for  "college  settlement"  and  for 
university  missions  in  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

If  limits  of  space  would  permit,  it  would 
be  a  pleasure  to  transcribe  so  noble  a  roll  of 
honor  as  the  seven  names  of  the  Illinois 
Band.  Eminent  among  them  were  Theron 
Baldwin,  "Father  of  Western  Colleges," 
and  Julian  M.  Sturtevant,  for  fifty-six  years 
in  the  service  of  Illinois  College  at  Jackson- 


Congregationalism  National    227 

ville.  The  method  of  the  "  Band  "  was  fol- 
lowed by  its  successors.  They  seek  the 
neediest  or  most  hopeful  field;  they  post 
themselves  within  supporting  distance  of 
each  other;  they  establish  churches  and 
send  for  reinforcements;  by  combination 
they  found  a  college.  Western  New  York 
and  Ohio  had  been  occupied  under  the  Plan 
of  Union.  Indiana  had  been  occupied  in 
force  by  the  Methodist  Church.  Illinois  was 
in  need  of  laborers  and  they  entered  it  with 
admirable  zeal  and  success.  The  Iowa 
Band  (Andover,  1843),  and  the  Washington 
Band  (Yale,  1890)  have  made  a  like  record. 
The  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  found  the 
Congregationalists  in  a  favored  position. 
They  had  no  Southern  allies  to  be  conciliated 
by  compromise  or  antagonized  by  hostili- 
ties. They  were  of  one  accord  on  the  ques- 
tions on  which  other  denominations  were 
divided  and  intensely  agitated.  Churches 
and  colleges  emptied  their  young  men  into 
the  Northern  army.     The  victorious  end  of 


228        The  Congregationalists 

the  war  opened  a  great  field  of  beneficent 
activity  from  which  they  had  before  been 
excluded  by  their  known  anti-slavery  prin- 
ciples. It  was  fit  that  the  denomination 
which  from  the  beginning  had  been  fore- 
most both  in  missions  and  in  education, 
should  be  among  the  first  and  most  effective 
in  the  new  work  of  evangelization  at  once 
by  church,  school  and  college.  With  ad- 
mirable promptitude  and  energy,  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association  recognized  its 
calling,  and  became  the  almoner,  not  of 
Congregationalists  only,  but  of  many  others 
eager  to  help  in  the  work.  The  record  of 
the  success  of  this  great  work  at  the  South, 
afterwards  expanding  to  include  *' the  de- 
pressed races  "  generally,  does  not  admit  of 
being  condensed  into  a  tabular  form;  for  it 
is  in  its  nature  diffusive.  As  it  has  not 
originated  within  sectarian  limits,  so  its  re- 
sults are  not  confined  by  them.  Any  sum- 
mary of  its  results  must  be  taken  with  large 
allowance. 


Congregationalism  National    229 

The  new  opportunities  and  responsibili- 
ties laid  upon  the  Congregational  churches 
by  the  changed  conditions  at  the  close  of 
the  war  were  widely  felt  to  demand  con- 
sideration in  another  National  Council.  It 
was  thirteen  years  after  the  Albany  Council 
of  1852,  that  the  Boston  Council  of  1865 
assembled,  June  14th,  in  the  venerable  Old 
South  Meeting-house.  It  enrolled  five  hun- 
dred and  two  members,  ministers  and  dele- 
gates of  the  churches.  No  one  felt  that  the 
council  failed  of  a  great  and  high  success, 
notwithstanding  that  two  of  the  chief  points 
in  its  program  were  only  approximately 
reached.  Considering  how  many  genera- 
tions had  passed  since  any  authoritative  dec- 
laration had  been  made  of  the  common  be- 
lief of  the  churches,  and  what  considerable 
modifications  had  supervened  upon  the 
ancient  "platforms"  of  polity,  it  was  not 
unreasonable,  in  entering  on  widely  ex- 
panded labors,  to  set  forth  distinct  state- 
ments on  both  these  points.     It  would  have 


230        The  Congregationalists 

been  good  for  the  churches  represented  to 
know  their  own  mind  clearly,  and  give  clear 
and  authorized  assurances  to  the  public 
whom  they  were  offering  to  serve  and  to 
whom  they  appealed  for  cooperation.  But 
after  not  a  little  debate,  which  left  it  uncer- 
tain whether  the  five  hundred  minds  would 
agree  in  a  common  statement  of  belief,  the 
council  was  fain  to  content  itself  with  an 
improvised  "Burial  Hill  Declaration"  of 
adherence  to  the  "faith  and  order  held  by 
our  fathers  "  substantially  as  set  forth  two 
hundred  years  before.  There  is  great  virtue 
in  that  word  "substantially."  In  like  man- 
ner, a  "platform"  of  church  government, 
after  the  style  of  the  Cambridge  Platform, 
designed  to  represent  existing  usage,  which 
had  been  prepared  by  two  acknowledged 
authorities  in  church  law,  was  laid  aside  in 
favor  of  a  statement  of  principles  in  three 
brief  paragraphs.  Practically  the  most  im- 
portant work  of  the  council  was  its  appeal 
to  the  churches  to  raise  $250,000  for  im- 


Congregationalism  National    231 

mediate  service  in  the  evangelization  and 
education  of  the  freedmen  of  the  South. 

At  the  close  of  the  synod  of  1637,  held  on 
occasion  of  the  so-called  Antinomian  con- 
troversy, Governor  Winthrop  was  so  filled 
with  delight  at  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and 
brotherly  love  that  had  prevailed,  that  (with 
a  mind  like  that  of  Simon  Peter  in  the  holy 
mount)  he  proposed  that  there  should  be 
such  a  council  every  year.  In  like  manner, 
the  happy  progress  and  outcome  of  the  two 
National  Councils  at  Albany  and  Boston  led 
to  the  manifestation,  not  of  a  unanimous, 
but  of  a  widely  prevalent  desire  for  a  peri- 
odical national  council.  At  various  meet- 
ings held  in  the  year  1870  for  conference  as 
to  a  celebration  of  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  Pil- 
grims, this  desire  had  formal  expression; 
and  after  due  consultation  and  preparation, 
the  first  of  a  series  of  triennial  National 
Councils  was  held  at  Oberlin,  November 
15,  1 87 1,  with  an  attendance  of  276  repre- 


232        The  Congregationalists 

sentatives  of  Congregational  churches  in 
twenty-five  States  and  Territories.  A  Con- 
stitution was  adopted,  fixing  a  ratio  of  rep- 
resentation, recognizing  the  autonomy  and 
independence  of  the  churches,  disavowing 
all  pretensions  to  legislative  or  judicial  func- 
tions, and  repudiating  any  claim  to  be  the 
only  churches  of  Christ. 

The  National  Council  has  thus  far  done 
little  to  justify  the  misgivings  of  those  who 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  instituting  it.  One 
valuable  service  it  has  rendered  with  excel- 
lent tact  and  success.  The  declaration  of 
the  common  belief  of  the  churches  by  the 
vague  announcement  of  a  "substantial" 
agreement  with  ancient  formulas  had  been 
quite  satisfactory  to  very  few,  and  highly 
unsatisfactory  to  many.  The  demand  was 
presented  to  the  National  Council  in  1880, 
for  **a  formula  that  shall  not  be  mainly  a 
reaffirmation  of  former  confessions,  but  that 
shall  state  in  precise  terms  in  our  living 
tongue  the  doctrines  that  we  hold  to-day." 


Congregationalism  National    233 

The  Council  responded  by  appointing  seven 
men  who  in  turn  should  select  a  committee 
of  twenty-five  representing  different  regions 
and  different  tendencies,  to  draw  up  the  de- 
sired statement.  The  sole  instruction  given 
by  the  Council  to  this  committee  of  a  com- 
mittee, was  this  admirably  judicious  one — 
that  they  should  report,  not  to  the  Council 
but  directly  to  the  churches  and  to  the 
world,  through  the  press.  The  "Confes- 
sion of  1883,"  as  their  report  is  commonly 
called,  bears  no  extrinsic  sanction  beyond 
the  authority  of  the  names  subscribed  to  it; 
but  as  these  include  some  of  the  ablest 
theologians  and  wisest  men  of  their  time, 
their  work  has  met  with  general  and  solid 
approval.  The  document  was  signed  by 
twenty-two  out  of  the  twenty-five  names; 
and  the  entire  freedom  with  which  the  three 
conscientiously  withheld  their  signatures 
gave  the  more  emphasis  to  the  twenty-two 
names  that  were  signed. 
The  value  of  a  later  change  accomplished 


234        The  Congregationalists 

by  the  moral  influence  of  the  National  Coun- 
cil remains  to  be  tested  by  time — perhaps  a 
long  time.  At  the  Council  of  1892,  after  a 
decade  of  controversy  sometimes  acrimo- 
nious concerning  the  conduct  of  the  executive 
of  the  "American  Board,"  a  committee  ap- 
pointed three  years  before  reported  the  ex- 
istence of  a  wide-spread  desire  that  the 
Societies  which  were  the  agents  of  the 
churches  in  the  administration  of  their  com- 
mon charities,  should  become  more  directly 
representative  of  the  churches  in  their  con- 
stitution. It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  real 
pliability  of  a  close  corporation  to  public 
opinion  expressed  with  emphasis,  that  with 
the  least  possible  delay  the  "American 
Board  "  undertook  to  constitute  a  controlling 
part  of  its  membership  out  of  the  nominees 
of  the  several  State  organizations  represent- 
ative of  the  churches.  It  had  already  been 
demonstrated  how  prompt  and  effective  was 
the  recourse  of  the  churches  in  case  of  dis- 
satisfaction  with  any  of  their  almoners — 


Congregationalism  National    235 

that  it  was  simply  to  find  or  organize  an- 
other to  be  employed  instead.  This  course 
was  taken  in  1846,  in  the  creation  of 
the  American  Missionary  Association,  and 
again  in  1888,  in  the  activity  of  the  Berkeley 
Temple  Committee;  in  both  cases  with  no 
harm  done,  and  much  incidental  good.  In 
this  way  no  church  had  any  difficulty  in 
getting  itself  "  represented  "  in  the  practical 
direction  of  the  Societies.  One  hindrance 
was  in  the  way  of  this  recourse.  The  form 
of  High-churchism  by  which  Congregation- 
alists  are  affected  is  that  of  investing  their 
apparatus  of  benevolent  societies  with  a 
solemn  and  sacrosanct  dignity,  as  if  to  inter- 
fere with  them  or  divide  them  were  a 
schism  or  a  sacrilege — a  habit  which  has 
been  characterized  as  "sacrificing  to  their 
net  and  burning  incense  to  their  drag."  It 
is  the  prevalence  of  this  feeling  that 
makes  the  only  need  of  constituting  the 
societies  by  a  series  of  primary  and 
secondary    elections    like    those    that    go 


236        The  Congregationalists 

to  the  making  up   of  a  political   conven- 
tion. 

It  is  conceivable  that,  in  their  present 
tendency  tov^ards  solid  organization  on  a 
continental  scale  as  a  sect  in  competition 
with  other  sects,  Congregationalists  may 
gain  some  of  the  advantages  of  confedera- 
tion, while  losing  none  of  the  distinguished 
advantages  of  the  former  independence;  it 
is  conceivable,  but,  judging  from  the  past 
of  church  history,  not  probable.  Looking 
far  ahead,  it  is  easy  to  foresee  the  emergence 
of  questions  upon  credentials,  or  upon  the 
"recognizing"  of  a  theological  seminary, 
that  shall  invest  the  National  Council,  in 
spite  of  itself,  with  judicial  functions.  In 
like  manner  the  investing  of  State  * '  Associa- 
tions" with  the  right  of  nominating  direc- 
tors to  national  societies  may,  in  easily  im- 
aginable contingencies,  devolve  upon  the 
societies  the  arbitration  of  disputes,  and 
draw  them  into  controversies  in  comparison 
with  which  the  stormiest  experiences  of  the 


Congregationalism  National    237 

past  would  seem  like  a  calm.  It  is  the  loose 
texture  of  their  organization  which  in  the 
past  has  saved  the  Congregationalists,  in 
every  case  but  one,  from  any  distinct  and 
lasting  schism.  It  is  not  possible  to  make 
the  tissue  more  fibrous  and  hard,  without 
making  it  more  fissile. 

The  present  tendency  to  federation  is  a 
clear  triumph  of  the  sectarian  Congregation- 
alism of  Dr.  Emmons  and  modern  Boston, 
over  that  comprehensive  Congregationalism 
of  the  New  England  Fathers,  which  was 
commended  by  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  and 
President  Sturtevant.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  centripetal  force  will  be  happily 
balanced  and  corrected  by  the  centrifugal. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

RECENT  QUESTIONS 

While  these  events  and  movements,  dur- 
ing the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
had  been  carrying  the  principles  and  insti- 
tutions of  Congregationalism  to  the  ends  of 
the  continent  and  of  the  earth,  a  change  of 
practical  theology  had  been  going  forward 
'*not  with  observation  "  which  is  hardly  less 
than  revolutionary.  The  change  began  with 
the  publication  by  Horace  Bushnell  of  Hart- 
ford, 1847,  of  a  thin  volume  of  "Views  of 
Christian  Nurture  and  of  Subjects  Adjacent 
thereto."  The  history  of  the  book  is  inter- 
esting. Two  discourses  on  this  thesis, 
**  That  the  Child  is  to  grow  up  a  Christian," 
had  excited  not  a  little  interest  in  the  circle 
of  the  author's  ministerial  neighbors.  The 
publication  of  them  was  called  for,  and  the 
238 


Recent  Questions  239 

discourses  were  unanimously  approved  and 
accepted  for  publication  by  the  Massachu- 
setts Sabbath-School  Society.  Months 
passed,  during  which  influences  were  busily 
set  at  work,  ultimately  with  success,  to  in- 
duce the  Committee  of  Publication  to  reverse 
its  action.  The  manuscript  being  returned 
to  its  author,  was  published  by  him  with  an 
"Argument  for  the  Discourses"  and  addi- 
tional papers,  on  "The  Spiritual  Economy 
of  Revivals  of  Religion";  "Growth,  not 
Conquest,  the  True  Method  of  Christian 
Progress";  "The  Organic  Unity  of  the 
Family  " ;  "  The  Scene  of  the  Pentecost,  and 
a  Christian  Parish."  It  could  have  been  no 
matter  of  regret  to  the  author  that  the  efforts 
for  the  suppression  of  his  book  should  have 
resulted  (as  usual  in  such  cases)  in  quick- 
ening public  interest  in  it.  It  was  gravely 
impugned  for  heresy;  but  the  author  was 
fortunate  in  having  drawn  this  fire  in  ad- 
vance; his  "argument  for  the  discourses " 
went  to  prove  not  only  that  the  doctrine  of 


240        The  Congregational ists 

the  discourses  was  the  common  orthodoxy 
of  the  church  from  the  earliest  ages,  but  that 
the  revivalism  against  which  it  was  aimed 
was  itself  a  modern  innovation,  dating 
chiefly  from  the  Great  Awakening  of  a  hun- 
dred years  before. 

The  inevitable  discussion  that  followed 
upon  this  challenge  was  attended  with  no 
immediate  visible  consequences  of  impor- 
tance; but  not  often  in  the  history  of  theo- 
logical literature  has  any  book  been  so  dis- 
tinctly proved  to  have  "its  seed  in  itself 
after  its  kind."  The  author's  high  faith  and 
deep  sincerity  of  conviction,  his  boldness  of 
paradoxical  statement,  and  the  rare  charm 
of  his  literary  style,  both  in  this  and  in 
his  copious  later  works,  captivated  the  at- 
tention of  thoughtful  readers  throughout 
Christendom.  He  survived  the  often  re- 
newed scourge  of  tongues,  to  find  himself 
in  his  lifetime,  canonized  in  the  affections 
of  multitudes  in  every  part  of  the  church 
catholic  as  saint  and  doctor  of  the  church. 


Recent  Questions  241 

Directly,  and  quite  as  much  indirectly,  tiie 
little  volume  on  Christian  Nurture,  in  its 
original  form  and  in  its  later  redactions,  has 
had  a  profound  effect,  in  every  sect  of  the 
American  church,  in  modifying  the  exag- 
gerated revivalism  which  has  been  its  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  for  a  century  and 
a  half.  An  incidental  result  of  the  book  is 
found  in  the  world-wide  institution  of  the 
Societies  of  Christian  Endeavor,  the  founder 
of  which,  as  pastor  of  a  church  in  Portland, 
Maine,  refers  to  this  book  as  the  germ  of 
his  enormously  productive  labors  for  the 
young. 

The  bearing  of  this  doctrine  of  Christian 
Nurture  on  the  essence  of  the  Congregational 
polity  belongs  partly  to  prophecy  as  well  as 
to  history.  The  story  of  the  Congregational 
churches  has  been  told  inadequately  indeed, 
if  it  has  not  disclosed  the  recurring  embar- 
rassments in  which  they  have  been  involved, 
from  the  very  beginning,  by  their  demand, 
as  a  condition  of  full  communion,  for  the 


242        The  Congregationalists 

evidence  of  a  conscious  experience  of  con- 
version. It  is  wonderful  whiat  progress  has 
been  made,  in  fifty  years,  in  the  reconsider- 
ation of  a  principle  once  deemed  axiomatic. 
The  reconsideration  cannot  proceed  further 
without  being  attended  by  reconstruction 
fitting  to  new  conditions.  An  illustration 
added  to  many  heretofore  adduced,  of  the 
non-persistence  of  schisms  among  Congre- 
gationalists is  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
Seminary  which  was  Dr.  Bushnell's  most 
acrimonious  antagonist  in  this  and  later  con- 
troversies, being  now  transplanted  to  Hart- 
ford, the  scene  of  his  illustrious  labors,  is 
distinguished  among  others  by  its  reverence 
for  his  memory. 

Of  the  difficulties  encountered  by  Con- 
gregationalists in  making  the  theological 
change  of  base  necessitated  by  advances  in 
Biblical  study,  there  is  the  less  occasion  to 
speak,  as  these  difficulties  are  common  to 
all  sects  and  all  theologies.  Yet  it  is  well  to 
record  that  theirs  was  the  leadership  into 


Recent  Questions  243 

these  difficulties,  through  the  pioneer  work 
of  Moses  Stuart  and  Edward  Robinson,  and 
later  of  George  R.  Noyes,  Andrews  Norton 
and  Theodore  Parker;  and  they  have  paid 
their  full  quota  of  contributions  to  the  re- 
lieving of  the  same  difficulties. 

More  special  to  Congregationalism  are 
certain  questions  just  now  emerging  which 
concern  the  application  of  that  polity  to 
church  work  in  great  cities.  One  of  them 
is  this:  whether,  in  meeting  the  exigencies 
of  this  work,  the  several  congregations  of 
the  city  may  not  so  combine  as  to  act,  in 
some  respects,  as  one  church.  History  is 
not  without  some  hints  bearing  on  this 
question.  It  leads  back  the  mind  to  that 
very  early  date  (1650)  when,  the  church  in 
Boston  having  overflowed  the  capacity  of 
its  meeting-house,  provision  had  to  be  made 
for  the  growing  population.  This  was 
really  a  crisis  in  the  development  of  the 
New  England  church  polity.  Should  an  ad- 
ditional  meeting-house    be    built    for    the 


244        ^^^  Congregationalists 

church  of  Boston,  now  grown  too  large 
ordinarily  to  meet  in  a  single  building;  or 
should  there  be  two  churches,  a  First  and  a 
Second  ?  On  this  point  the  intimations  of 
Scripture  seem  sufficiently  clear;  the  stu- 
dents of  the  New  Testament  who  had  seen 
so  clearly  and  insisted  so  sturdily  that  the 
Scriptures  recognize  no  such  thing  as  the 
church  of  a  province,  were  certainly  not 
incapable  of  perceiving  the  exactly  parallel 
fact  that  the  Scriptures  are  equally  ignorant 
of  the  churches  of  a  town;  that  *'the  church 
of  Achaia  "  or  "the  church  of  Galatia  "  is 
not  more  foreign  to  apostolic  usage  than  the 
First  Church  and  Second  Church  in  Ephesus, 
or  the  North  Church  and  the  South  Church 
in  Rome,  or  St.  Cephas'  Church  and  St. 
Apollos'  Church  and  Christ  Church  in  Cor- 
inth. Apparently,  however,  the  arbitrary 
dogma  that  a  church  "ought  not  to  be  of 
greater  number  than  may  ordinarily  meet 
together  conveniently  in  one  place  "  was 
already  a  veil  upon  their  hearts.     The  an- 


Recent  Questions  245 

swer  to  pending  questions  about  church 
work  in  cities  must  be  sought  by  going 
back  of  the  Cambridge  Platform;  and,  in 
modern  America,  rather  in  the  direction  of 
church  federation,  than  in  the  direction  of 
sectarian  combination. 

Another  question  which  sometimes  arises 
touching  the  conduct  of  great  city  churches, 
involving  the  doubt  whether  the  Congrega- 
tional polity  is  applicable  to  that  function,  is 
answered  by  history  with  great  distinctness. 
By  painfully  practical  demonstration  it  has 
sometimes  been  made  to  appear  as  if  the 
constitution  that  works  admirably  in  a 
church  of  a  hundred  members  was  im- 
practicable in  a  church  of  ten  or  fifteen 
times  as  many.  The  difficulty  is  identical 
with  that  which  is  encountered  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  town-meeting  govern- 
ment when  the  few  hundred  voters  of  the 
town  have  been  multiplied  to  the  many 
thousand  voters  of  a  city.  The  direct  de- 
mocracy of  the   town-m.eeting:   has   to   be 


246        The  Congregationalists 

superseded,  in  that  case,  by  the  repre- 
sentative democracy  of  city  government. 
The  conduct  of  a  multitudinous  city  church 
requires  a  like  modification;  otherwise  it 
settles,  in  peaceful  times,  into  an  oligarchy ; 
in  times  of  excitement  and  irritation,  it  is  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  mob.  At  all  times, 
such  a  body  is  absurdly  unqualified  for  the 
judicial  duties  which  are  among  the  most 
serious  duties  which  devolve  upon  a  church. 
A  glance  into  the  past,  even  the  recent  past, 
discloses  an  important  relief  for  this  diffi- 
culty; for  it  is  within  the  memory  of  living 
men  that  New  England  churches  have  begun 
to  be  governed  by  universal  suffrage.  By  ap- 
proved usage  the  government  of  the  church 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  men  of  full  age. 
Looking  still  further  back,  we  find  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church  vested  in  a  represent- 
ative body  of  three  or  more  elders,  with  a 
reference,  on  capital  questions,  to  the  vote 
of  the  brotherhood.  It  admits  of  doubt 
whether  the  original  church  of  Boston,  or 


Recent  Questions  247 

Salem,  or  Hartford,  with  its  restricted  suf- 
frage, its  government  by  a  board  of  elders, 
and  its  lack  of  a  prescribed  code  of  dogma 
as  a  bar  to  membership,  would  be  recog- 
nized to-day  as  a  Congregational  church. 
Future  experience  may  show  whether  or 
not  our  modern  Congregationalism  is  too 
rigidly  hardened  into  its  recent  sectarian 
mould  to  admit  henceforth  of  that  elastic 
adaptation  to  changing  needs  by  which  it 
has  formerly  been  distinguished. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  UNITARIANS 

The  story  of  that  wide-spread  alliance  of 
churches  which  likes  to  claim  for  its  ex- 
clusive use  the  title  of  The  Congregational- 
ists  has  been  told  at  such  length  as  to  leave 
no  adequate  space  for  other  histories  that 
are  entitled  to  be  included  under  the  same 
denomination. 

The  story  of  the  Unitarian  churches,  from 
the  beginning,  is  included  in  the  general 
history  of  the  churches  of  New  England. 
The  story  of  the  disruption  by  which,  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  Congre- 
gational churches  ''became  two  bands," 
has  been  briefly  told,  with  some  incidents 
of  later  history.  (See  pp.  155-184.)  But 
in  general  the  Unitarian  wing  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches  of  America  is  entitled 
248 


The  Unitarians  249 

to  the  beatitude  pronounced  on  the  land 
whose  annals  are  brief.  Its  history  is 
adorned  with  some  of  the  noblest  names  in 
American  literature,  theology,  patriotism 
and  beneficence.  Its  influence  on  the  mind 
of  America  and  of  the  world  has  been 
quite  out  of  proportion  to  its  numbers;  but 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  its  numbers  and 
visible,  corporate  achievements  are  equally 
disproportioned  to  the  magnificent  equip- 
ment of  men  and  material  resources  with 
which  its  career  began.  It  began  (taking 
1820  as  the  date  of  the  completed  dis- 
ruption) with  more  than  one  hundred 
churches,  including  some  of  the  strongest 
and  most  historically  venerable  in  America, 
and  with  a  clergy  such  as  (for  its  numbers) 
all  Christendom  beside  could  hardly  show. 
At  the  end  of  forty  years  of  immense  ex- 
pansion of  the  country,  the  number  of 
churches  had  not  been  doubled;  and  the 
denomination  had  grown  relatively  weaker 
in    its   own   metropolitan  centre,    Boston, 


250        The  Congregationalists 

while  its  outposts  were  far  from  vigorous. 
It  had  no  foreign  missions;  and  had  taken 
an  inappreciably  small  part  in  the  distinctive 
work  of  the  Congregationalists — that  of 
supplying  the  country  with  institutions  of 
the  higher  learning.  This  statement  makes 
no  account  of  the  beneficences  of  indi- 
viduals; but  making  the  largest  allowance 
on  this  score,  the  comparative  sterility  of 
Unitarianism  as  a  sect  is  a  fact  that  needs 
explaining. 

Some  of  the  reasons  for  it  are  altogether 
honorable.  From  the  outset,  the  Unitarian 
churches  had  been  most  unwilling  to  be  a 
sect;  and  became  such,  not  by  their  seced- 
ing from  others,  but  because  the  others 
insisted  on  seceding  from  them.  They 
were  reluctant  and  slow  in  putting  them- 
selves in  battle  array  for  aggressive  action. 
Appeals  to  sectarian  pride  and  aggrandize- 
ment tended  rather  to  repel  than  to  attract; 
and  rather  than  let  anything  be  done 
through    strife    or  vainglory,    they  some- 


The  Unitarians  251 

times  preferred  not  to  let  anything  be  done 
at  all.  But  after  all  it  is  not  easy  to  acquit 
them  of  the  charge  of  letting  their  liberalism 
lapse  into  indifferentism.  There  was  truth 
as  well  as  salutary  pungency  in  the  com- 
plaint of  James  Freeman  Clarke:  "The 
Unitarian  churches  of  Boston  see  no  reason 
for  diffusing  their  faith.  They  treat  it  as  a 
luxury  to  be  kept  for  themselves.  ...  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  they  do  not  wish  to 
make  Unitarianism  too  common." 

After  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  in  which 
individual  representatives  of  both  clergy 
and  churches  had  done  splendidly  dis- 
tinguished service,  in  the  field  and  in  the 
hospital  and  preeminently  in  the  Sanitary 
Commission,  the  impulse  to  undertake  some 
important  work  for  the  reconstructed  coun- 
try which  was  felt  by  every  religious 
organization,  did  not  fail  to  excite  to  good 
works  the  Unitarian  body.  The  American 
Unitarian  Association,  which  since  its  be- 
ginning in  1825  had  languished  on  a  starv- 


252        The  Congregationalists 

ing  income,  took  a  vigorous  start  forward. 
Its  income  rose  at  a  bound  from  $8,000  to 
$100,000.  Among  the  first-fruits  of  this 
new  enterprise  was  the  extremely  effective 
measure  of  establishing  stations  at  im- 
portant university  towns,  beginning  with 
Ann  Arbor,  Michigan.  But  the  consider- 
able accretions  to  Unitarianism  as  a  de- 
nomination, particularly  at  the  West,  which 
ensued  upon  this  aggressive  policy  were 
attended  with  serious  inconveniences. 
Among  the  new  adherents  were  some 
who  in  the  violence  of  their  reaction  from 
more  rigorous  forms  of  Christianity  were 
openly  reacting  from  Christianity  itself. 
The  system  of  Unitarianism  as  a  school  of 
Christian  teaching  was  thus  brought  under 
a  wider  and  more  serious  reprobation, 
which  the  sincere  faith  and  wholesome 
instruction  and  saintly  lives  of  its  great 
theologians  and  philanthropists  have  availed 
little  to  avert. 
That  the  mission  work  of  the  Unitarians 


The  Unitarians  253 

should  have  a  more  distinctly  sectarian 
character  than  that  of  other  Christian  bodies 
is  a  paradoxical  fact  which  is  explained  by 
the  necessity  of  the  case.  It  is  the  attitude 
of  their  fellow-Christians  towards  them 
that  forces  them,  in  turn,  into  an  attitude 
most  uncongenial  to  their  antecedents  and 
habits.  The  ill-effects  to  both  parties  of 
the  complete  sundering  of  fellowship  be- 
tween the  two  parties  of  Congregational- 
ists,  finds  new  illustration  in  a  divergence 
now  in  progress.  A  tendency  zealously 
favored  among  the  Orthodox  is  to  abolish 
the  parish  or  ** ecclesiastical  society"  which 
has  been  ordinarily  the  holder  of  the  tem- 
poralities of  the  church,  and  to  have  the 
church  itself  made  a  legal  corporation  for 
the  holding  of  its  property,  real  and  per- 
sonal. The  Unitarians,  moving  in  the  other 
direction,  tend  to  the  abolishing  of  the 
church  as  a  distinct  spiritual  covenanted 
body,  leaving  nothing  but  a  society  behind. 
The  history  of  this  last  hundred  years  has 


254        The  Congregationalists 

dwelt  on  divergences  more  and  more  dis- 
tinctly emphasized  between  these  parties. 
There  are  also  converging  lines,  growing 
more  and  more  distinct  with  the  lapse  of 
recent  years.  It  may  be  that  a  new  chapter 
is  about  to  be  added  to  the  history. 


CHAPTER  XX 

A   WIDER   REVIEW 

We  have  now  traced,  in  our  rapid  narra- 
tive, the  growth  on  American  soil  of  a 
system  of  church  poHty  which  has  pro- 
foundly influenced  the  course  of  church 
history  and  even  of  political  history  in  the 
western  hemisphere.  Many  factors  have 
entered  into  the  result.  There  was  the 
providential  opportunity  afforded  to  the 
Founders  of  freely  building,  not  on  other 
men's  foundations.  There  was  sincere  and 
diligent  study  of  the  Scriptures  in  search  of 
a  divinely  approved  polity.  There  was  re- 
action from  abuses  that  had  been  observed 
and  painfully  experienced  in  the  old  coun- 
try. There  was  pressure  of  new  exigencies 
in  the  new  country.  Incidentally  there  was 
the  influence,  never  a  controlling  one,  of 
255 


256        The  Congregationalists 

many  past  years  of  Separatist  theorizing 
and  experimentation,  of  which  the  fairest 
and  sweetest  fruit  was  the  feeble  church 
and  colony  of  Plymouth. 

This  polity  native  to  the  soil  took  vigor- 
ous and  enduring  root,  while  all  the  colonial 
church  establishments  beside,  Catholic,  An- 
glican, Quaker,  and  Reformed,  died  or 
languished.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  course  of  the  history  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches  of  America  became 
divided  into  two  streams  of  very  unequal 
volume — a  division  which  has  persisted  to 
the  present  day. 

Of  the  several  church-fellowships  dis- 
tinctively Congregational  in  organization 
but  not  in  the  same  line  of  historical  con- 
nection with  the  primeval  churches,  one  is 
so  preeminent  in  numbers  and  honorably 
distinguished  in  its  long  history  as  to  have 
demanded  a  separate  volume  on  "The  Bap- 
tists" in  the  series  of  "The  Story  of  the 
Churches." 


A  Wider  Review  257 

Among  the  rest,  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting is  that  which  entitles  itself  "The 
Christian  Connection."  It  was  a  growth  of 
the  great  revival  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  at  which  time  a  serious 
protest  against  the  insistent  dogmatism  of 
many  Congregational  and  Presbyterian 
churches,  setting  up  codes  of  doctrine  as  a 
bar  to  membership,  alienated  some  earnest 
people  who,  finding  themselves  thus  ex- 
cluded from  the  communion  which  they 
would  have  sought,  entered  into  fellowship 
with  each  other  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
allegiance  to  Christ,  and  a  common  subjec- 
tion to  the  will  of  God  as  set  forth  in  the 
Scriptures.  By  a  notable  coincidence  this 
process  was  going  on  simultaneously  at 
three  remotely  distant  centres  of  revival,  in 
Virginia,  in  Vermont,  and  in  Kentucky  and 
Ohio.  The  multiplying  and  increasing  con- 
gregations were  not  long  in  finding  each 
other  out,  even  over  such  vast  intervening 
distances,  and  in  entering  into  relations  of 


258        The  Congregationalists 

correspondence.  Agreeing  in  a  common 
faith  and  a  common  order,  they  are  still 
more  emphatically  at  one  in  their  repudi- 
ation of  imposed  creeds  as  barriers  to  fel- 
lowship among  Christian  disciples,  and 
their  protest  against  sectarian  names  and 
divisions.  We  have  already  seen  how, 
about  this  same  time,  there  arose,  especially 
in  Eastern  Massachusetts,  an  inordinate  zeal 
for  imposing  dogmatic  tests,  and  for  propa- 
gating select  sectarian  churches  according 
to  the  pattern  designed  in  the  **  Scriptural 
Platform  "  of  Dr.  Emmons.  This  tendency 
among  the  Congregationalists  of  that  period 
did  much  to  justify  and  even  necessitate  the 
separate  organization  of  **The  Christian 
Connection."  By  a  process  not  without 
precedent  in  church  history,  the  protest 
against  sectarianism  became  itself  the  basis 
of  a  sectarian  organization;  and  the  honor- 
able aversion  to  bear  any  divisive  name  has 
inevitably  resulted  in  the  perversion  of  the 
name    of    Christ    (as    at    Corinth    in    the 


A  Wider  Review  259 

apostolic  age)  into  a  sectarian  appella- 
tion. 

The  churches  of  "  The  Christian  Connec- 
tion," nearly  fifteen  hundred  in  number, 
comprising  upwards  of  one  hundred  thou- 
sand communicants,  are  simply  Congrega- 
tional churches.  There  was  once  a  reason 
for  their  separate  organization.  At  the 
present  day,  no  such  reason  (aside  from  the 
fact  that  the  organization  already  exists) 
could  be  alleged  which  would  not  be  equally 
a  reason  why  the  communion  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  should  be  itself  divided 
by  the  withdrawal  or  exclusion  of  some  of 
its  worthiest  churches.  The  continuance  of 
the  divided  organization  after  the  reasons 
for  it  have  ceased  is  one  illustration  out  of 
many  of  how  much  easier  it  is  to  create  a 
division  than  to  heal  it. 

The  Universalist  denomination,  which, 
through  changes  of  sentiment  on  both  sides 
of  the  dividing  line  of  controversy,  is  in  less 
sharp  antagonism  than  formerly  with  the 


26o        The  Congregationalists 

"  orthodox  "  sects,  is  nevertheless  removed 
from  the  category  of  strictly  Congregational 
churches  by  some  features  of  organization 
which  affiliate  it  rather  to  the  family  of  the 
classical  or  synodical  churches.  A  like  ob- 
servation would  apply  to  some  of  the  or- 
ganizations of  the  vastly  expanding  and 
increasing  body  of  the  Lutheran  churches, 
among  which  the  tendency  towards  the 
autonomy  of  the  local  congregation  is 
clearly  noticeable. 

In  fact  the  prevailing  power  of  the  Con- 
gregational principle,  in  America,  is  no- 
where more  impressively  manifested  than  in 
its  practical  dominance  in  those  orders  of  the 
American  church  in  which  theoretically  it  is 
least  recognized.  No  American  sect  has 
been  organized  with  a  loftier  contempt  of 
Congregational  principles  than  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  as  it  took  form  under  the 
controlling  influence  of  John  Wesley. 
"  We  are  not  republicans,  and  do  not  intend 
to  be,"  was  his  characteristic  dictum.     But 


A  Wider  Review  261 

in  spite  of  his  intentions,  that  is  the  direc- 
tion in  which  his  great  institute  is  tending. 
Even  the  form  of  the  original  oligarchy  has 
been  modified  by  our  climatic  conditions; 
and  where  the  form  remains,  it  is  well  un- 
derstood, both  within  and  without,  that  the 
absolute  authority  over  the  individual  con- 
gregation is  to  be  exercised  with  scrupulous 
regard  to  the  previously  ascertained  wishes 
of  the  congregation. 

It  would  naturally  be  expected  that  the 
last  of  the  hierarchical  church-governments 
to  yield  to  the  Congregational  principle  of 
local  home  rule  should  be  the  episcopacy  of 
the  Roman  Church.  And  indeed  through 
many  trying  and  critical  years  the  conflict 
between  hierarchical  authority,  and  con- 
gregational rights  under  the  name  of  "  trus- 
teeism,"  was  fought  out,  and  carried  in 
favor  of  the  hierarchy  at  last,  only  under 
pressure  of  the  extreme  sanctions  of  spirit- 
ual power.  The  result  of  the  conflict  was 
nominally  a  complete  victory  of  the  episco- 


262        The  Congregationalists 

pate  over  the  congregations;  but  virtually  it 
left  the  two  parties  in  such  a  mood  of  re- 
spect for  each  other's  powers  as  to  result  in 
a  tacit  understanding  that  the  absolute 
power  of  the  clergy  is  to  be  exercised, 
except  in  extreme  cases,  according  to  the 
ascertained  wishes  of  the  congregation.  It 
would  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  polity  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United 
States  is  Congregational;  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  administration  of  it  has  been 
profoundly  affected  by  the  spirit  of  those 
conceptions  of  church  order  which  are  the 
native  growth  of  our  soil.  Nowhere  is  this 
influence  more  justly  appreciated  than  in 
those  conservative  circles  of  Old  World 
Catholicism  in  which  the  words  ''  L^ameri- 
canisme/'  "  der  Ameri/ianismus,"  are  whis- 
pered as  words  of  serious  portent. 

The  Story  of  the  Congregationalists  as 
here  told  has  been  narrowly  limited  to  the 
genesis,  growth  and  expansion  of  it  in 
America.     In  England,  the  practical  institu- 


A  Wider  Review  263 

tion  of  Congregational  churches  had  to  wait 
for  a  half  century  from  the  American  be- 
ginnings. Under  the  Commonwealth,  the 
problem  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical institutions  of  the  nation  was  resolved 
in  the  Westminster  Assembly  in  a  Presby- 
terian sense.  In  that  historic  council  the 
principles  that  had  been  wrought  out  into 
practice  in  New  England  were  represented 
by  a  minority  inconsiderable  in  number,  but 
in  every  other  measurement  worthy  of  all 
consideration.  What  might  have  been  the 
result  if  the  great  leaders  of  the  New  Eng- 
land churches  had  not  declined  the  urgent 
invitation  to  return  and  take  part  in  the  de- 
liberations, is  an  interesting  but  not  a  prac- 
tical question.  The  many  New  Englanders 
who  did  return  and  rose  to  high  places  un- 
der Parliament  and  Protector  must  doubtless, 
by  their  testimony,  have  made  a  deep  im- 
pression on  public  opinion.  But  those  un- 
certain and  stormy  days  were  not  favorable 
to    church-building,  and  whatever  begin- 


264        The  Congregationalists 

nings  were  made  were  soon  swept  away 
by  the  fetid  reflux  of  the  Restoration. 

The  history  of  the  English  Congregation- 
ahsts  from  the  Act  of  Toleration  in  1689  is 
not  less  noble  than  that  which  we  have  re- 
counted in  America.  It  is  the  story  of  pa- 
tient endurance  for  conscience'  sake  under 
long  persistent  public  odium  and  insult;  of 
honorable  achievement  in  education  and 
learning  and  high  public  service,  in  spite  of 
the  protracted  exclusion  from  the  universi- 
ties; and  of  self-denying  mission  work  at 
home  and  in  the  ends  of  the  earth,  such  as 
might  well  put  to  shame  the  Establishment 
with  its  immense  resources,  and  provoke  it, 
at  last,  to  a  worthy  emulation. 

The  task  imposed  upon  the  Congrega- 
tionalists of  England  was  a  far  different 
one  from  that  which  had  burdened  their 
brethren  in  the  American  wilderness  sixty 
and  seventy  years  before,  and  in  some  re- 
spects a  more  painful  one.  The  duty  was 
not  laid  upon  them  to  organize  a  system  of 


A  Wider  Review  265 

churches  and  parishes  for  a  growing  State; 
but  only,  in  that  evil  and  adulterous  genera- 
tion, to  make  such  protest  for  righteousness 
and  for  Hberty  and  purity  in  worship  and 
discipline  as  their  scanty  numbers  and  poor 
resources  would  permit.  There  was  no 
necessity  for  maintaining  among  their  scat- 
tered congregations  such  mutual  correspond- 
ence as  was  required  among  the  parish 
churches  of  New  England.  Consequently 
it  became  characteristic  of  them  to  insist 
with  emphasis  upon  the  independence  of 
the  churches,  and  to  look  with  distrust  upon 
even  the  most  guarded  alliance  of  churches 
for  common  ends.  Not  until  1833  was  a 
common  organization  effected,  in  "The 
Congregational  Union  of  England  and 
Wales."  Of  late  the  tendency  has  been 
strong  in  the  direction  of  closer  organization, 
being  promoted  by  frequent  correspondence 
with  the  American  churches,  and  still  more 
by  a  growing  sense  of  the  common  inter- 
ests and  duties  of  the  free  churches  of  the 


266        The  Congregationalists 

United  Kingdom,  in  all  their  different  orders. 
The  wide  and  powerful  expansion  of  Con- 
gregational institutions  throughout  the 
British  Islands  and  the  British  Empire  is  a  fit 
subject  for  a  volume,  but  must  here  be 
passed  with  a  mere  mention.  Like  brevity 
must  needs  be  observed  in  referring  to  the 
spontaneous  tendency  towards  Congrega- 
tional polity  which  is  observable  in  recent 
movements  for  "reformation  without  tar- 
rying" that  have  been  begun  in  state-church 
countries,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant, 
as  Italy,  France,  Switzerland,  Germany,  and 
the  Scandinavian  countries. 

The  crowning  glory  of  the  Story  of  the 
Congregationalists  is  the  record  of  what 
they  have  done,  not  for  the  upbuilding  of 
themselves  into  a  strong  and  numerous 
sect,  but,  in  honorable  disregard  of  such 
ambition,  for  the  glory  of  God  in  the  serv- 
ice of  his  creatures.  None  can  deny  them 
this  honor,  that  theircharity  has  been  of  that 
sort  which  "  seeketh  not  its  own."    Taking 


A  Wider  Review  267 

the  lead  in  the  organization  of  large  chari- 
ties, they  have  been  controlled,  in  this  work, 
by  a  veritable  passion  for  fellowship  with 
all  Christians,  insomuch  that  a  large  part  of 
their  greatest  work  stands  without  credit  to 
themselves  and  even  accredited  to  others. 
In  *'the  Leavening  of  the  Nation  "  (to  bor- 
row the  apt  title  of  Dr.  Clark's  interesting 
history),  their  work  extends  far  beyond  the 
nearly  six  thousand  churches  that  are  affili- 
ated with  each  other  under  the  sectarian 
title.  Few  clergy-lists  of  American  denomi- 
nations fail  to  show  in  places  of  highest 
usefulness  the  names  of  those  trained  in  this 
discipline.  It  implies  no  disparagement  to 
the  good  work  of  other  orders  of  churches, 
to  say  (what  none  will  deny)  that  the  Con- 
gregationalists  have  been  preeminently 
leaders  in  the  higher  education.  Their 
monumental  work  is  seen,  not  only  in  the 
chain  of  institutions  stretching  across  the 
continent  bearing  the  sectarian  name,  but 
beginning    with    Harvard    and    Yale    and 


268        The  Congregationalists 

Princeton  and  Schenectady  and  the  Western 
Reserve,  it  includes  with  these  many  others 
into  which  the  life  and  strength  of  their 
sons  has  passed,  but  which  they  did  not 
care  to  limit  by  affixing  their  own  name, 
and  which  they  were  even  content  to  see 
taken  under  the  exclusive  direction  of 
others. 

From  their  first  germinant  growth  in  the 
soil  of  New  England,  the  Congregational 
churches  have  been  consecrated  by  a  special 
divine  unction  to  the  work  of  missions. 
From  John  Eliot  to  David  Brainerd,  and 
from  Brainerd  to  Mills  and  his  fellows  be- 
side the  Williamstown  haystack,  and  from 
their  day  to  this  present,  the  bright  succes- 
sion has  never  been  interrupted.  But  as  in 
other  enterprises,  so  in  this,  they  have  not 
been  careful  to  brand  their  work  with  their 
own  trade-mark.  By  preference  it  has  been 
from  of  old  their  choice  that  the  fruits  of 
their  successful  service  should  be  indistin- 
guishably  mingled  with  those  of  their  fel- 


A  Wider  Review  269 

lov^-Christians;  and  when,  in  process  of 
time,  they  have  been  found  laboring  in  de- 
tachment from  the  rest  of  "  the  sacramental 
host,  "  it  has  been  not  because  they  have 
withdrawn  from  others,  but  because  others 
have  withdrawn  from  them.  They  may 
well  afford  this  noble  carelessness;  for  their 
record  is  on  high,  and  even  here  on  the 
blurred  pages  of  our  earthly  history,  it  is 
no  doubtful  record.  The  rich  and  perennial 
fruits  of  labors  that  have  been  wrought  on 
all  the  continents  and  islands  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,  the  American  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society,  and  the  American  Mission- 
ary Association  are  abundant  and  fragrant 
in  every  corner  of  the  garden  of  the  Lord. 
And  their  seed  is  in  themselves  after  their 
kind. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[The  literature  relating  to  the  story  of  the 
Congregationalists  is  very  copious,  includ- 
ing, for  its  earlier  periods,  all  the  documents 
of  New  England  history.  Dr.  H.  M.  Dex- 
ter's  "  Collections  towards  a  Bibliography  of 
Congregationalism"  embraces  '],2^o  titles, 
and  it  is  estimated  by  Prof.  Williston 
Walker  that  if  completed  and  brought  up  to 
date  it, would  include  not  less  than  8,000. 
The  following  list  contains  the  titles  of 
some  leading  and  easily  accessible  works 
which  may  be  relied  on  to  give  ample  refer- 
ences to  the  literature  of  the  subject.] 

History  of  the  Congregational  Churches 
in  the  United  States,  by  Williston  Walker. 
(In  American  Church  History  Series.)  New 
York,  1894. 

Congregationalists  in  America,  by  Albert 
E.  Dunning.     New  York,  1894. 
270 


Bibliography  27 1 

The  Congregationalism  of  the  Last  Three 
Hundred  Years  as  Seen  in  Its  Literature, 
by  Henry  Martyn  Dexter.  With  a  Biblio- 
graphical Appendix.     New  York,  1880. 

The  Creeds  and  Platforms  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, by  Williston  Walker.  New 
York,  1893. 

Genesis  of  the  New  England  Churches, 
by  Leonard  Bacon.     New  York,  1874. 

History  of  the  Unitarians  in  the  United 
States,  by  Joseph  Henry  Allen.  (In  Ameri- 
can Church  History  Series.)  New  York, 
1894. 

Unitarianism  in  America,  by  George 
Willis  Cooke.     Boston,  1902. 

Leavening  the  Nation,  by  Joseph  B. 
Clark.     New  York,  1903. 

History  of  New  England,  by  John  Gor- 
ham  Palfrey.  Five  volumes.  Boston, 
1859-90. 

Complete  History  of  Connecticut,  Civil 
and  Ecclesiastical,  by  Benjamin  Trumbull. 
New  Haven,  1818. 


272        The  Congregationalists 

Thirteen  Historical  Discourses  on  the 
Completion  of  Two  Hundred  Years  from 
the  Beginning  of  the  First  Church  in  New 
Haven,  by  Leonard  Bacon.  New  Haven, 
1839. 

An  account  of  Congregational  usages  both 
past  and  present  may  be  sought  in 

The  Congregational  Way,  by  George  A. 
Boynton.     Boston,  1904. 

For  a  view  of  the  history  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  in  its  relation  to  that  of 
the  American  churches  generally,  it  may  be 
permitted  to  refer  to 

A  History  of  American  Christianity,  by 
Leonard  Woolsey  Bacon.  (In  American 
Church  History  Series.)    New  York,  1897. 


Index 


Albany  Convention,  220. 

Allen,  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  183,  271, 

American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions, 

194,  234. 
American  Home  Missionary  Society  (now  known  as  the 

Congregational  H.  M.  S.),  199. 
American  Missionary  Association,  217,  228. 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  162,  185,  208, 
Antinomian  Controversy,  57. 
Arianism  in  Eastern  Massachusetts,  169,  171. 
Arminianism  reprobated  in  early  New  England,  142. 
Associations  of  ministers,  107. 
Awakening,  The  Great,  1 19-132. 
Awakening,  The  Second,  145. 

Bacon,  Leonard,  211,  219,  237,  271,  272. 
Baldwin,  Theron,  226. 
Baptism,  conditions  of,  77,  89,  112. 
Baptists,  194,  256. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  at  Boston,  201 ;  at  Lane  Seminary,  213. 
Belknap,  Jeremy,  early  Unitarian,  159. 
Bellamy,  Joseph,  theologian,  137. 
Berkeley  Temple  Committee,  217,  235. 
Bible  Societies,  197. 
Biblical  science,  243. 

Boston,  churches  of,  47,  56,  80,  88,  158;  become  Uni- 
tarian, 170;  Boston  Council  of  1^)65,  229. 
Boynton,  George  A.,  272. 

273 


274  Index 


Bradford,  Governor  William,  31,  42. 

Brainerd,  David,  129,  133. 

Brattle  Church,  Boston,  88. 

Brewster,  "William,  of  Plymouth,  25. 

Browne,  John  and  Samuel,  schismatists  at  Salem,  42,  60. 

Browne,  Robert,  early  Separatist,  24. 

Buckminster,  Joseph  Stevens,  163. 

Burial  Hill  Declaration,  230. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  his  "  Christian  Nurture,"  78,  238. 

Cambridge,  Synods  at,  59,  61,  65. 

Cambridge  Platform,  65 ;  modern  departures  from,  68. 

Cartwright,  Thomas,  15. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  163,  202,  205. 

Charter  of  Massachusetts  transferred  to  New  England,  46. 

Christian  Connection  of  Congregational  Churches,  257. 

Christian  Endeavor  Societies,  241. 

Chauncy,  Charles,  78. 

Chauncy,  Charles,  Jr.,  128,  158. 

Church  instituted  at  Salem,  38;  at  Charlestown  (Boston), 
47  ;  at  New  Haven,  49. 

Church  principles,  28,  66;  of  Dr.  Emmons,  188,  224, 

Church-building  fund,  222. 

City  evangelization,  243 ;  disqualification  for,  245. 

Clark,  Joseph  B,,  267,  271, 

Codman,  John,  ordained  at  Dorchester,  163. 

Colleges,  108,  138,  150,  185,  209,  211,  226,  267. 

Colman,  Benjamin,  90,  122,  123. 

Confessions  of  Faith,  75,  87,  no,  230,  233. 

Congregationalism,  defined,  9 ;  not  an  imported  polity, 
13  ;  gradually  evolved,  55  ;  formulated  in  Cambridge 
Platform,  67;  later  modifications,  67,  88;  modified 
by  Say  brook  Platform,  94  ;  democratic  reaction,  97  ; 
spiritual  quickening,  120;  fanatical  disorders,  125; 
controlled  by  civil  authority,  53,  126;  expansion 
and  activity,  134;  theology,  135;  not  sectarian,  41, 
^3'  73»  141  »  home  missions,  144 ;  alliance  with 
Presbyterian  Church  in  Plan  of  Union,  149;  dis- 
ruption,  157  ;  consequent  modification  into  a  sec- 


Index  275 


tarian  polity,  188;  foreign  missions,  193;  organiza- 
tions for  beneficence,  195;  conflict  with  drunken- 
ness, 203 ;  with  slavery,  207 ;  Plan  of  Union  abro- 
gated, 221;  westward  expansion,  222;  two  con- 
trasted types  of,  223;  national  councils,  221, 
229,  231 ;  tendency  to  confederation,  236  ;  internal 
revolution,  238 ;  need  of  adaptation  to  city  evangeli- 
zation, 243 ;  to  the  administration  of  large  churches, 
245  r  influence  extending  beyond  bounds  of  sect, 
255,  and  of  nation,  263. 

Connecticut,  adopts  system  of  classical  church  polity,  92, 
96;  disorders  suppressed  by  legislature,  125;  leads 
in  home  missions,  144. 

Consociation  aimed  at  in  Massachusetts,  in  proposals  of 
1705,  91 ;  achieved  in  Connecticut,  92,  96. 

Cotton,  John,  at  Boston  in  Lincolnshire,  45;  in  New 
England,  56,  59,  61,  62. 

Councils,  national,  221,  229,  231.     See  also  Synods. 

Covenant,  in  institution  of  church,  28,  38,  47,  50. 

Covenant,  Half-way,  76. 

Dartmouth  College,  134. 

Davenport,  James,  129,  131,  146. 

Davenport,  John,  of  New  Haven,  49,  62,  79,  80. 

Decadence  in  second  generation,  83,  and  later.  III. 

Dedham  decision,  167. 

Democracy  in  state  or  church  disfavored  in  early  New 

England,  27,53;   movement  towards    led  by  John 

Wise,  98,  106,  141. 
Dexter,  Henry  Martyn,  270,  271. 
Dickinson,  Jonathan,  122. 
Discipline,  church,  36,  86,  103. 

Dissenters,  Baptist,  Quaker  and  Episcopalian,  106,  143. 
Dorchester,  England,  source  of  Puritan  migration,  17, 

45  ;  in  Mass.,  48. 
Dunning,  Albert  E.,  270. 
Dwight,  Timothy,  137,  146,  149,  185,  204. 

Eaton,  Theophilus,  of  New  Haven,  49. 


276 


Index 


Education,  See  Colleges  and  Theological. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  117,  128,  133,  134,  138. 

Edwards,  Jonathan  the  younger,  137,  150,  207. 

EHot,  John,  108,  109. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  declines  to  observe  the  Lord's 
Supper,  177;  gives  offense  by  pantheism,  178. 

Emmons,  Nathanael,  137,  186;  his  ecclesiastical  Jacob- 
inism, 188,  224,  237. 

Endicott,  Governor  John,  20,  31,  42. 

English  Congregationalism,  a  later  growth,  263;  its 
honorable  record,  265. 

Evarts,  Jeremiah,  205,  208. 

Fellowship  of  Churches,  43,  53,  106,  141. 

Fmney,    Charles    Gaylord,    evangelist   and   theologian, 

213,  219. 
Freeman,  James,  of  King's  Chapel,  157,  164. 
Fuller,  Samuel,  physician  and  deacon  at  Plymouth,  30. 

Gay,  Ebenezer,  pastor  at  Hingham,  158. 

Great  Awakening,  1 19. 

Griffin,  Edward  Dorr,  of  Andover  and  Boston,  191. 

Half-way  covenant,  76,  112,  114. 

Hartford  First  Church  adopts  dogmatic  test  of  member- 
ship, 190. 

Harvard  College,  108,  113;  seats  a  Unitarian  in  chair 
of  theology,  161 ;  its  temporary  decline,  186. 

Higginson,  Francis,  minister  at  Salem,  20,  34,  38. 

Hingham  Church,  Presbyterian  tendency,  61,  74;  in 
charge  of  Ebenezer  Gay,  158,  and  of  Henry  Ware, 
161 ;  its  ancient  meeting-house,  Frontispiece. 

Home  Missionary  Societies,  145,  199, 

Hooker,  Richard,  his  "  Polity,"  15. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  founder  of  Hartford,  61,  92. 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  theologian,  137,  207. 

Hopkinsianism,  157. 

Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Ann,  56,  60. 


Index  277 


Illinois  Band,  226. 

Independent,  newspaper,  218. 

Indians,  American,  conversion  of,  133,  134. 

Iowa  Band,  227. 

Journalism,  religious,  147,  218. 

King's  Chapel  becomes  Unitarian,  157. 

Lamson,  Alvan,  ordained  at  Dedham,  167. 
Legislatures  controlling  churches,  53,  58,  92,  126. 
License  to  preach,  107. 
London,  a  Puritan  centre,  45. 

Massachusetts  Company  sends  settlers  to  "  The  Bay," 
and  ministers,  20 ;  and  brings  over  its  charter,  46, 

Mather,  Cotton,  109,  207. 

Mather,  Increase,  85,  91,  109,  165. 

Mather,  Richard,  62. 

Mayhew,  Jonathan,  early  Unitarian,  159. 

Membership  in  church,  conditions  of,  28,  64,  73,  81,  89, 
104,  112,  116,  142,  189,  224. 

Millenary  petition,  14. 

Mills,  Samuel  John,  Jr.,  193,  197,  199. 

Ministry,  early  theories,  34,  40,  52 ;  how  far  abandoned, 
69,  71,  90,  105,  167. 

Missions,  foreign,  193,  268;  home,  144. 

Morse,  Jedediah,  164;  Sidney,  218. 

National  Councils,  221,  229,  231. 
Newbury,  Presbyterian  tendency  at,  61. 
New   Haven,  planted    and   organized,  49;  merged    in 
Connecticut,  80,  102. 

Oberlin   College  and  Seminary,  211 ;  Council  at, 

231. 
Occum,  Samson,  134. 
Old  Calvinists,  157. 
Old  South  Church,  Boston,  80,  163,  169,  229, 


278 


Index 


Ordination,  at  Salem,  34,  40;  English  ordination  in- 
valid, 40,  52;  definition,  71,  105. 

Orthodox  secessions  in  Eastern  Massachusetts,  168;  de- 
velop great  vigor,  186;  tend  to  theological  excess, 
191,  and  to  a  sectarian  polity,  188. 

Palfrey,  John  Gorham,  271. 

Parish  system  of  New  England,  54,  102,  126,  166,  168. 

Park,  Edwards  Amasa,  137. 

Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  189,  208. 

Parker,  Theodore,  disfellowshipped  by  Unitarians  for 
heresy,  179. 

Payson,  Edward,  his  doctrine  of  human  nature,  192. 

Philip's  war,  85. 

PhilHps,  George,  of  Watertown,  53. 

Pierpont,  James,  of  New  Haven,  109 ;  Sarah,  1 18. 

Pilgrims  of  Plymouth,  19,  23,  25,  27. 

Plan  of  Union,  150,  152,  198,  200 ;  abrogated,  220,  221. 

Platform,  Cambridge,  65  ;  Saybrook,  94. 

Plymouth,  church  at,  is  divided,  160. 

Presbyterian  Church,  aided  by  New  England,  149 ;  in- 
fluenced by  it,  151,  190,  200. 

Presbyterianism  of  early  New  England  churches,  28,  53, 
55,  105,  140,  152. 

Princeton  College,  138. 

Proposals  of  1705,  92. 

Puritanism  in  England,  not  Congregationalist,  13;  prin- 
ciples of,  14,  16. 

Reforming  Synod,  85,  iii. 
Robinson,  John,  26,  29. 

Salem,  settled  and  organized,  20,  23,  33. 

Savoy  Confession,  87,  no. 

Saybrook  Synod,  93  ;  platform,  93. 

Scrooby,  church  at,  25. 

Sectarian  division  not  intended  by  early  Congregation- 

alists,   41,   63,   73,   142 ;  sectarian  polity   a   later 

growth,  225. 


Index  279 

Separatism,  16,  20,  24,  51,  62. 
Separatists  in  Connecticut,  130,  143. 
Shipherd,  John  J.,  212. 
Skelton,  Samuel,  pastor  at  Salem,  34. 
Slavery,  207,  215,  220,  222. 
Smalley,  John,  theologian,  137. 
Smith,  Ralph,  Separatist  minister,  41. 
Society,  ecclesiastical,  104. 
Stoddard,  Solomon,  81,  113,  ii7»  "P- 
Sturtevant,  Julian  M.,  226,  237. 
Synods,  59,65,85,  114,  126. 

Taylor,  Nathaniel  W.,  137. 

Tennent,  Gilbert,  125. 

Theological  education,  137,  162,  185,  187. 

Theology  of  New  England,  134. 

Transcendentalism,  176. 

Trumbull,  Benjamin,  271. 

Unitarianism,  its  brilliant  beginning,  170;  its  biblical 
methods;  doctrine  of  human  nature,  172;  adhered 
to  Congregational  principles,  173;  failed  of  the 
duty  of  parish  churches,  174;  sterility  ;  usefully  in- 
fluential, 176;  disturbed  by  Western  Issue,  180; 
initial  success,  182;  narrowly  Hmited,  183;  slow 
growth  ;  forward  movement,  252. 

Vane,  Sir  Harry,  at  Boston,  57. 

Voluntary  societies  for  beneficence,  196;  ready  check  on 
abuses,  235. 

Walker,  Williston,  65,  270,  271. 

Ware,  Henry,  161. 

Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,  17S. 

Washington  Band,  227. 

West,  The,  144-  .        . 

Western   Reserve,  home   missions  in,    144;  university, 

268. 
Westminster  Confession,  75,  1 10. 


28o  Index 

Wesley,  John,  122. 
Wlieelock,  Eleazar,  134. 
Wheelwright,  John,  56,  5S,  60. 
White,  John,  of  Dorchester,  17,  45,  49. 
Whitefield,  George,  122. 
Williams,  Roger,  60,  109. 
Williams  College,  185,  193. 
Wilson,  John,  of  Boston,  47. 
Winthrop,  Governor  John,  46,  57,  59. 
Wise,  John,  98,  106,  152. 

Yale  College,  113,  139,  146,  185. 


The    Story    of  the    Churches 
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THE  TIMES  AND 
rOUNG   MEN 


By  Rev.  Josiah  Strong,  D.D., 

Author  of  ^^Our    Country,^*  ^* Religious  Movemenis 

for  Social  Betterment,** 

^*  Twentieth- Century  City,''  '' Expansion**  etc, 

i2mo,  doth,  net  75  cents 

Dr.  Strong  takes  up  the  profound  changes  which  have 
come  about  within  the  memory  of  living  men,  both  in 
the  physical  world  and  in  the  world  of  ideas.  He 
shows  what  were  the  causes  of  these  changes,  and 
points  out  the  results  which  have  flowed  from  them 
already,  together  with  established  tendencies  which  are 
prophetic  of  future  changes,  thus  interpreting  the  times 
in  which  we  live. 

He  discusses  the  great  sodal  laws  which  must  be  obeyed 
if  sodal  ills  are  to  cease,  and  enables  the  young  man  to 
make  a  practical  application  of  these  laws  to  the  solu- 
tion of  his  own  personal  problems,  such  as  the  choice 
of  an  occupation,  his  education,  his  relation  to  athletics, 
personal  expenditure  and  the  like. 

In  short,  the  book  is  a  brief  and  simple  philosophy  of  life, 
intended  to  help  the  young  steer  a  safe  and  successful 
course  amid  the  conflicting  and  perplexing  currents  of 
modem  change — a  work  which  all  persons  engaged  in 
any  capacity  with  the  guidance  of  youth  would  be  glad 
to  see  in  the  hands  of  their  charges. 

The  Baker  &  Taylor  Co.,  Publishers 

33-37  E.  17th  Street,  Union  Square  North,  New  York 


BAKER  <Sr*   TA  YLOR  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

— i— — ■ ■ — ^ —  ■% 

A   New   Book   by  Josiah    Strong* 

EXPANSION 

UNDER    NEW   W0RLD=C0NDITI0N5. 

i2mo,     cloth,     $1.00;     paper,     50     cents. 

With  the  same  exceptional  qualities  which  insured  a  dis- 
tribution of  more  than  170,000  copies  of  "  Our  Country," 
Dr.  Strong  has  taken  up  the  great  theme  of  Expansion.  His 
book  sparkles  with  striking  and  original  thoughts,  put  in 
the  most  captivating  way.  The  reader  pursues  the  argument 
with  breathless  interest  from  chapter  to  chapter,  and  hurries 
through  the  most  astonishing  revelations  of  our  nation's  re- 
sources, growth  and  present-day  power  and  stature  to  a 
brilliant  summary  of  our  relations  at  the  century's  dawn  to 
other  countries,  and  to  the  great  questions  that  confront  the 
nation  under  the  new  world-conditions  of  to-day. 

"  The  character,  history  and  operations  of  the  various  forces 
combined  in  the  movement  toward  expansion  are  described 
in  the  nine  successive  chapters  of  this  little  volume  with  all 
that  argumentative  skill  and  power,  with  all  that  masterful 
arrangement  of  statistical  information,  for  which  Dr.  Strong 
has  become  justly  famous." — Christian  Work. 

"  Dr.  Strong  makes  a  clear  statement  of  the  changed  world- 
conditions  which  render  our  former  policy  of  isolation  no 
longer  practicable.  The  Anglo-Saxon  race  cannot  refuse  to 
take  its  place  in  the  closer  world-relationship  which  is  to 
come." — The  Outlook. 

"  Mr.  Strong  would  have  us  dismiss  '  the  craven  fear  of 
being  great,'  recognize  the  place  in  the  world  which  God 
has  given  us,  and  accept  the  responsibilities  which  it  de- 
volves upon  us  in  behalf  of  a  Christian  civilization.  The 
book  is  one  of  the  strongest  statements  of  the  expansion 
doctrine  that  we  have  seen.  It  will  convince  many  because  it 
clings  to  ideals  while  keeping  an  eye  on  the  cold  facts." — 
Public  Opinion. 

Stnt,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price,  by 

THE    BAKER   &   TAYLOR   CO.,    PUBLISHERS, 
33-37  E.  17th  St.,  Union  Sq.  North,  New  York. 


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